Good afternoon and welcome to the City of Denton Planning
and Zoning Commission
work session for March the 8th 2017. This meeting has been
duly posted and we
have a quorum present and I will call our meeting to order
at 5 o 7 and at
this time I will turn the meeting over to Manal for
clarification of agenda
items. Thank You Chairperson Strange. If it's the wish of
the Commission,
Chairperson Strange would we like to go ahead and announce
the order of the
agenda items for just discussion tonight at the work
session? Sure. And to move
item 5A to the bottom to the last item on as part of the
discussion so A would
move and be heard or discussed and presented after E, 5E.
And with that we
can dive into the first item of the agenda which are the
plots. We have a
preliminary plot for the Mission Street offices and if
there are any questions
of the Commission of staff from the Commission I'd be happy
to call upon
Hayley to come and address that. If none we can dive into
the next item which is
a plant Eagle Farms, a final plant. Any questions related
to that? Seeing none
we'll go ahead and move on to item for items for individual
consideration. We do
have an ADP request and I'm going to ask Hayley to come up
and present that for
us tonight or this afternoon rather.
Good evening. So this is item ADP 1620 for the Mission
Street offices and the
request is to consider approval of an alternative
development plan for an
initial phase of a proposed office park development and the
property is located
at the yeah at the southeast corner of Fort Worth Drive and
Mission Street. The
overall project encompasses all three parcels there at that
corner. The area
in yellow is the boundaries of this ADP request for tonight
though and yeah
there in red is the entire property that they're looking at
which is the
preliminary plot that you all have on your agenda tonight
as well. So the
current zoning for this property is a Community Mixed Use
General or CMG and
the future land use designation is also Community Mixed Use
and you may remember
from some of our other discussions Community Mixed Use is
intended to
promote a mix of residential commercial and institutional
uses but commercial
would be the predominant use intended there. So here's the
the site plan and
there was a small change made to the site plan that was in
your backup so I
passed out a revised copy of that for you all before the
meeting and the only
change that was made well there were two actually they
added this label here on
these parking spaces north of the detention pond to
indicate that those
will be part of a future development and then they made one
change to this table
here to take out a provision that was no longer necessary.
So as far as staff
considerations they had four requested deviations from the
subchapter 13
design standards. The first of those and one of the most
significant was for the
provision in 35 13 13 a for our non-residential standards
that requires
the buildings to be primarily oriented towards the street
and the intent of
that as you can imagine is to make sure that our buildings
present well to the
street and we have clearly designated entrances from the
street for people
seeking that use. So as you can see from their site plan
here this is more of a
office park or campus type feel that they're going for here
with all the
buildings oriented inward towards the parking lot and what
will be future
buildings as well. So this phase includes three buildings
here located on lots one
through three and as you can see lot this building on lot
one and this
building here would be the two that are primary we're
primarily concerned with
that are oriented away from the street and would have a
rear or side facing
the street. So as part of our considerations for that we
requested
that the buildings still have a you know a very cohesive
feeling to all of them
throughout the office park is one of our considerations and
we wanted to see that
the buildings would have some architectural interest in
design from
all sides so that you still get a good feel for the
building and a good
presentation to the street. So the top here is their front
elevation that would
be oriented inwards to the towards the middle of the
property. We have the right
elevation there on the bottom and then here you can see
what they've proposed
for the rear of the building. So you know it is a masonry
materials that they're
proposing it does use windows and awnings to create some
architectural
interest from the street rather than just a solid wall. And
they're also
proposing the use of what appears to be five shrubs and a
tree that would be in
front of the building to kind of break up the spans from
the street to the
building there. And as I'm sure you're familiar with Fort
Worth Drive one of
staff's other considerations was that this orientation away
from the street
may not be wholeheartedly you know breaking the intent of
the code per se
because this isn't a pedestrian oriented area predominantly
on Fort Worth Drive.
You know we have sidewalks but there aren't a whole lot of
customers for
these potential uses probably that would be walking there.
So having that
orientation towards the inside makes sense for the veh
icular traffic that
would be the predominant users here. And one of their other
requests is related
to parking. So the DDC requirement for general office use
is one space per 450
square feet of building. So for the size of buildings they
're proposing at this
time 27 spaces would be required. And subchapter 13 goes on
to state that any
parking in excess of that number should be constructed of
pervious material. What
they're proposing is actually 39 spaces total so they're
over that required
number by 12 for this phase. And in lieu of using permeable
paving of some sort
they've proposed a detention pond located here in red. And
that pond would
be designed to I swim standards and that would mean that it
would be required to
hold the water quality volume of this parking lot for up to
24 hours.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. Haley is that an open
pond or is it underground outside?
My understanding is it would be an open pond. I spoke with
Deborah Viera about it
this morning and she said at this point she would be
looking for their final pond
designs at the final platting stage so they're not quite
there to the full
design yet but I believe it would be an open pond. The fact
that that's gonna back
up to a residential area there's no concern about odors or
anything like
that or flooding. There actually are some buffering
requirements and we'll get to
those here in a minute. So that's their proposed mitigation
for the excess
parking is the use of this detention pond to treat the
water quality. And then
because of the size of this overall full development once
they get all of those
future phases built out exceeds 40,000 square feet that
does trigger some
large-scale development standards in the DDC and those
requirements are meant to
help mitigate potential nuisances from large-scale
developments in terms of
visuals and especially their compatibility when they adjoin
single
family residential uses. One of those provisions is for an
8-foot masonry wall
constructed of brick, stone, split block or concrete that
has to run the entire
common boundary line between the large-scale development
and the single
family use and there's also a provision that mechanical
equipment located within
these developments cannot be within a hundred feet of
residential properties.
So if we go back to our site plan here to address the
requirement for this 8-foot
wall they are proposing to construct a type C buffer that
is slightly enhanced.
The type C buffer would be required anyway between a
commercial and single
family use and there is a single family residence on the
property to the south
of them and so the type C buffer is a requirement already.
They're proposing to
provide some additional plantings, trees and shrubs to
enhance that in lieu of
providing the buffer plus a masonry wall. And in terms of
mechanical equipment
marked in red there, there are proposed air conditioners
and other mechanical
equipment for these buildings that would be located
approximately 30 feet from
that property line with the single family use and so as
their mitigation for
those being closer than required by code they're proposing
architecturally
compatible screening as well as plantings. They didn't
specify at this
time what those plantings would be but it was part of their
description there.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. So there's nothing no
easier than an ICU
unit in that area? I don't believe so. I believe this is
intended just for offices.
Go ahead. So the parking requirements based on 12,000
square feet but you're
we're going over conditions for a 40,000 large scale. Why
are we not requiring
parking for 40,000 or why are we requiring large scale for
12,000 square
feet? It's because when they originally proposed this it
was brought in that
their intent is for over 40,000 square feet of building but
they want to do that
in phases so we wanted to make sure that all those
requirements were addressed
as each phase comes in. If I can chime in Commissioner Riz
al, one of the
elements associated with this is that it is going to be an
office campus
development or an office style development and as a result
we're
looking at it comprehensively and that is why even though
it might come in as a
phased program we want to ultimately review this as a
comprehensive. So parking
will be done on a phase by phase requirement? Okay thank
you. There are
criteria for approval of an ADP outlined in subchapter 13.
Those were outlined in
your backup and overall staff felt that this meets those
criteria. It seems a
logical location at this hard corner for an office park or
campus with multiple
offices like this that would be condensed into one area as
is keeping
with the future land use plan and that community mixed use
desire for this area.
So staff is recommending approval of this with a few
conditions. The first of
those is that the proposed development would substantially
conform to the site
plan that was provided this evening. The second is that the
development would
also substantially comply with the landscape plan with a
couple of
modifications that we think would enhance the development.
The first of
those being that in addition to those five shrubs that they
show on the
landscape plan in front of the building we would like to
see that large spans.
Go to the site plan. Yeah so these five shrubs we'd like to
see this large area broken up with some more
landscaping so we're proposing about a five foot wide area
that would contain
tall grasses as well as the proposed shrubs and kind of an
undulating pattern
to provide some some interest and a little bit of softening
between just the
street and the building. Since the orientation is a way we
want to make
sure that that does present as well from the street as
possible and that would
include in our mind breaking up this large area of just
grass in this case.
And our other requirement on the landscape plan is that we
feel that
simply enhancing the buffer as they've proposed doesn't
necessarily meet the
intent of that large-scale development requirement for a m
asonry wall because
as we all know vegetation does tend to die back at certain
times of year and so
seasonally there would be the chance for this development
to be visible and the
noises and odors and things like that from it to carry to
that residence next
door. We feel that adding back in the requirement for that
masonry wall would
help address that as it would provide year-round screening
between these two
and help enhance the buffering between the two uses.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you
Chair. Did John drop when the requirement for an eight foot
wall in that location
and so why are we going from eight foot to six foot? We
felt that six foot would be
appropriate enough in this case. It's not necessarily a
large-scale development in
terms of a large warehouse or like a big box store or
something like that. It is
smaller buildings but overall in scale wouldn't be as
imposing. So we reduced
that to a six foot requirement just because we felt it
would be appropriate
in this case between the two uses. I'm having trouble with
names. Commissioner Taylor.
Thank you Chair. So I'm just trying to understand the the
phasing I guess in
this. The lot four it appears that the retention the
detention pond is the only
half of it's going to be built? They are intending a larger
detention pond as the
future phases come in I believe. At this point they're
proposing just to construct
a pond that would treat the water quality volume from this
portion of the
site. Okay and then the rest of the development it's still
going to be
facing away from the street. It has 75 more parking spaces
for 26,000 more
square feet so it's going to still need additional ADPs as
it builds out. Yes.
And so okay and the decision not to just do one ADP now for
the whole thing? So at
this, sorry Haley. At this point the intent is we know that
there is a
potential or a possibility that this may be developed as a
office campus style
development and that's why we were looking at it
comprehensively. Our first
thought was let's bring this all together but there was
discussion with
the applicant who said well I'm not you know they might not
be a hundred percent
sure this is potentially their build out. They might change
there might be some
changes in the future as it relates but there's certain on
these buildings and
therefore the goal is to make sure that if that doesn't
happen then we're at
least accommodating with the masonry wall requirement and
what have you that
we look at it in this cohesive manner but also have the
ability to expand that
focus. And the speaking of the masonry wall would that
follow the entire lot
line? Yes. Yes for now it would follow the southern
property line for the portion that
they're developing at this point. And then if it it would
be likely in the
next phase that it would also continue along the east side
as well? Yes there
are also single-family residences to the east. Okay thank
you. Commissioner Ellis.
Thank you chair. Haley I know you and I briefed this a
little bit but I guess to
get it on record so the site plan and the prelim plan don't
go together with
with the labeling of lot four right so that I mean that's
not really lot four
according to the prelim plan right that's that's a common
area. Yes there is
the discrepancy in the labeling on the preliminary plat
this area called lot
four on the site plan is addressed as common area lot one
so that label. So the
prelim plat is correct? Yes. This is wrong? Yeah that would
be a common area lot
with the detention pond on it. Right okay okay thanks.
Commissioner Hatchbeth. I may
be missing it. I'm assuming they're gonna have some signage
on forward drop. I'm
not sure what their intent for signage for the entire
campuses I know the
building elevation showed signage on building one which is
the only
elevation they've completed at this point. So as far as we
know all the
signage will be on the buildings itself nothing in the. I'm
not aware of what
their intent is for signage I think the applicant will be
here tonight though if
you would like to address that question with him. Okay and
then if I may. Thank
you. Sure. Same question lot four are there any
calculations based on how they
drew their lines so for example are the parking spaces
calculated or the is
there any calculations based on they only drew this line in
the middle of
this area? They did present preliminary calculations that
Deborah Vieira
reviewed and she couldn't be here tonight so I'm not sure
that I could
speak to how she calculated that water quality volume in
the size of the pond
but I know they did present those and Deborah reviewed them
as well and so I
believe this lot line or this line that they've drawn here
is surrounding the
area that it would be required to treat that water quality
volume. Right but my
question is are they just drawing a line arbitrarily to get
a number that's
favorable does that make sense? Maybe they can do that by
right I just want to
know is that. I'll try and tackle that question. Appreciate
it. I don't believe it's
an arbitrary line I think if you look at what they're
proposing they've got their
prelims and in terms of their CEPs and what have you we
should they should
have calculated what they're trying to show you is the
extent of that building
footprint itself lot four could potentially accommodate as
a drain
adhesion additional water or what have you as the rest of
the phase builds out
it could potentially accommodate that and be in keeping
with our environmental
teams concept of being you know as the future ADP comes
forward so when we look
at that line let's not look at it as a solid lot line dem
arcation but mainly
the intent or the area that is being encompassed under this
ADP at this point
in terms of compromising any engineering requirements
obviously that would not
occur because prior to issues of building permit all the
plans would have
to be reviewed for all the engineering infrastructure and
infrastructure
requirements. Thank you. Yeah and the specific pond design
requirements I was
told Deborah reviews those with the final plat. Correct.
Commissioner Sullivan.
Thank you sir. Is the retention pond being built to
accommodate the future use
along that side or just what's being built currently? This
time it is just for
this current phase with these three buildings and their
associated parking.
So where they have currently future design ideas may end up
being another
retention pond or how is that going to be handled at that?
From what I've
discussed with the applicant the boundaries shown here are
a rough
estimate of the area that they would use for detention for
the entire development.
The pond would be expanded with those future phases. So the
entire lot for maybe
a retention pond? The entire common area lot. Gotcha. Okay.
Thank you.
So staff's other recommendations we propose that all the
screening walls for
the mechanical equipment be constructed of masonry
materials that are compatible
with the building facade and in addition we propose they
plant a mixture of
shrubs and tall grasses around the outsides of those to you
know accentuate
the walls and enhance the campus feel. We also propose that
building one as
identified on the site plan should substantially comply
with the attached
elevations at this time those are the only elevations they
've developed so
we're also proposing that buildings two and three be
constructed of masonry
materials and be similar in design and concept to that
elevation for building
one. Just to help create a cohesive sense across the office
park as it develops.
And we also suggest that any future phases be uniform
relating to frontage
setbacks building materials and landscaping along Fort
Worth Drive to
help create a cohesive feel for the campus from the street.
And that's all I
have so I can answer any other questions at this time.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you
Chair. Just real quick stuff I think you mentioned that
though this is not a
typical pedestrian area there were sidewalks that run along
Fort Worth. Yes so they are
proposing I believe they're required to build the sidewalk
along Fort Worth
Drive and they're proposing sidewalk connectivity in front
of the buildings
that would go out to that sidewalk and they've also
proposed some bike racks
here to allow for alternative means of access for employees
and users. So the
sidewalk they're building will connect with existing
sidewalk or in anticipation
of future sidewalk? Earl are you familiar with the sidewalk
s that are developed
along Fort Worth Drive currently? Is it connecting to an
existing sidewalk? No.
There is no sidewalk.
Yeah.
Are those pervious or impervious? Well I know as part of
the Tech Stop project
of the widening of US 377 they are constructing sidewalk on
both sides so
this I believe this five foot sidewalk. That was my next
question. That's being
built by the development and will connect to them. Okay so
they are going to be
widening Fort Worth Drive? To six lanes. Any dates on that
yet? Just uh they're
actually relocating utilities as we speak and the pavement
portion should
occur sometime hopefully summer of this year. Cool. Thank
you.
Now that'd be different in the future. Moving on to our
next item.
It's going to be public hearing. It's a final replant. Okay
.
Hayley might want to stay back if there any questions
regarding item 5B which
is the final replant for the Roberts addition. If there any
questions we can
talk about those.
Hayley would you pull that up please?
There yes it is. Yes it's a splitting of one lot into two
lots for commercial
development at the corner of Ector and Emory. Okay so that
was. Commissioner
Tyler. Thank you chair. Yeah my question was I thought this
was zone commercial
and it looked almost like these would be residential lots
like a third acre lot
with a you know 80 foot road front edge or something so is
the plan is for
commercial development? Yes yeah these are commercial
commercial lots. Thank
you. Commissioner Sullivan. Last year we talked about Aldi
going in to the north
of this on the same in the same area there was a lot of
concern about traffic
on Emory and all the things it was going to do to interrupt
the the neighborhood
flow and so forth and I think Aldi did a good job of
providing screenage on the
south part of their lot in order to take care of that issue
and with the you know
the truck offloading ramp and so forth. What's the plan for
any commercial
building going in here to provide the same screening that
the people were
concerned about with Aldi's before that now is going to be
transferred to the
south to this new area? Yeah so any development would be
required to meet
the DDC requirements for screening landscaping street trees
all of those
things. I'm not sure about the second lot the lot at the
hard corner there I
believe is intended for a medical office they've submitted
a site plan request
for that lot. Okay thank you. More questions? Moves to C.
Moves us to item C and
Haley's gonna present this one as well. Andy. I believe C
is the zoning case. Yes.
These two go together as owning in an SUP for the same
property. So this case
as E 1627 is for the standard and Hudson at Med Park. The
request is to hold a
public hearing and consider a request for a rezoning of
approximately 20 acres
from regional center commercial downtown district to
regional center residential
2. The property is the western portion of a larger property
that's located at
2100 South May Hill. The property is outlined in yellow and
it sits at the
end of Hudson Wood Drive here and Somerset Road to the
south. The Providence
Place Apartments is this development that is to the east
and south of the
property and then the Med Park station is actually here
just south of that. So
the current zoning for the property as I mentioned is RCCD
their proposal is for
RCR 2. This property is located within a regional mixed-use
future land use
designation. This designation is applied to areas that are
primarily along the I
35 interchanges primary arterials. They're intended to be
regional
destinations for commercial and mixed-use development which
includes
moderate to high density residential. Just to give you an
idea of where this
sits that reach that particular regional mixed-use center
encompasses a large
area along I 35 and this property is located just here
where the yellow star
is kind of on the outer fringe of that designation. So
staff's considerations
for this one of those was that rezoning to RCR 2 while
there isn't any other
instance of RCR 2 immediately adjoining this is consistent
with the zoning
pattern in this area because all of these districts RCR 2,
RCR 1, RCCD all of
those are within the same regional mixed-use center family
of zoning
districts that all fit within that regional mixed-use
future land use
designation. This request is actually for a down zoning to
a less intensive
zoning district and staff felt that the RCR 2 designation
on this property could
provide us kind of a transition and scale of development
and use between the
surrounding RCR 1 and what is likely to be more intensive
commercialized
development here along May Hill Road within the RCCD
district. And just to
give you an idea of what I'm talking about here this entire
area that kind of
matches with that future land use designation that regional
mixed-use
center you can see has this family of zoning districts
applied to it RCR 1,
RCR 2, and then RCCD in and RCCD. And that RCR 2 is
actually not a very
common zoning designation in this area you can see there's
only a few instances
of that throughout here. The RCCD district requires that
multifamily as a
use be part of a mixed-use development along any collector
or arterial and so
in this case Hudson Wood Drive if I remembering correctly
is actually
classified as a collector street or will be once it's
extended across so there
would be a requirement for mixed-use and commercial
development specifically on
the ground floor of any multifamily development under the
existing zoning.
Within RCR 2 multifamily can be developed without that
mixed-use
component if it is approved with an SUP which is the next
case that we'll go
over. And staff felt that given the substantial offset from
this property
that they're looking at from May Hill Road here this
primary arterial commercial
uses may not be supported necessarily this far off of that
primary road
because this is largely a neighborhood development that's
occurred back here on
Hudson Wood so far. Just to give you a comparison this is
pretty substantial
down zoning in terms of the scale of what can be developed
on the property if
this rezoning is approved so the density would be reduced
from 100 dwelling units
per acre to 40. The maximum lot coverage would drop from 90
% to 75%
thereby increasing the landscaping to 25% and the building
height as well would
drop by half from 100 feet to 50 feet.
Notifications were sent and one neutral response was
received and I passed that
out before the meeting here and staff is recommending
approval of this request
because of its compatibility with the surrounding land use
and zoning pattern
and its compatibility with the goals of the DIN plan 2030
and I can answer any
questions. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. One quick
one. The extension of Hudson
Wood Drive that wouldn't actually go to May Hill we have to
rely upon the city
because they own another property is that right? I know
they're intending to
extend it through their property but I will let Earl answer
the question about
its extension. All the way to May Hill? Yeah let me pull an
aerial for you there.
That's perfect. This is Hudson Wood I believe. Yes as part
of the development Hudson
Wood will extend from through their property off-site and
tie into
May Hill both the existing May Hill and ultimately the
proposed new May Hill
ones that's widened. So it will carry all the way through?
Yes it has to by fire code
requirements because the fire code requires two points of
access to serve
this development and right now there's only one and that's
off of Quail Creek
and Brinker. Okay while you're up there the white lines
over towards May Hill
that look like this one yes what is that? That was the old
alignment of the
widening of May Hill Road however what happened was the
city could not acquire
the right away south of this curve and so what we had to do
is realign May Hill
back to its original alignment and acquire right away off
of that. Okay thank you.
Okay so the second part of this request is for the SUP for
that multifamily use.
So as I mentioned the request is to hold this public
hearing and consider a
request for a specific use permit to allow multifamily
development on that
approximate 20 acres of property. We're familiar with the
property location now
just off of May Hill Road at the end of Hudson Wood and Som
erset and as I
mentioned current zoning is our CCD which would require
that mixed use
component. Their proposal as we just saw was to take this
to an RCR 2
designation. As I mentioned before it is within this
regional mixed use future
land use designation which encourages moderate to high
density residential
development. So pending the approval of this rezoning the
applicant is
proposing a multifamily development that is not part of a
mixed use
development therefore they're seeking the approval of this
ADP. The multifamily
development is consistent with that future land use
designation which like
I said does encourage that mixture of residential and
commercial uses. This
also complies with all the criteria within subchapter 6 of
the DDC for SUP
and those criteria are all outlined in your backup. So to
go over their site
plan briefly here did provide a actually I think that North
area was incorrect so
we have what they're proposing is two multifamily
developments that would
be separated by Hudson Wood Road. The top portion they
refer to as the standard
the southern portion would be the Hudson and this third lot
here that they're
proposing to develop as a part of this would provide a
detention pond for these
two developments. So looking at the the northern portion of
it first we have four
buildings within the standard it's a total of 263
residential units breaks
down into 43 one-bedroom units 135 two-bedroom and 85 three
-bedroom. All
four of these buildings they're proposing would be three
stories tall
approximately 34 feet in height. The total lot coverage
would be around 69%
and they're proposing a total of 472 parking spaces
throughout the
development along these private streets as well as I
believe a few parking
spaces on Hudson Wood Drive and they are also proposing to
provide 30 bicycle
parking spaces within this development. On the south side
of Hudson Wood we have
the development they're calling the Hudson which would be
independent senior
living so still multifamily but age restricted to senior
citizens and this
would contain two buildings with a total of 160 units 112
one bedrooms 48 two
bedrooms in keeping with the same scale of development also
three stories
approximately 34 feet in height and this development would
have a total of 160
parking spaces no bicycle spaces are provided because of
the intended users
however they do provide a network of sidewalks throughout
the development
and they're providing sidewalk connectivity down here to
allow
connectivity to Somerset Drive for residents to be able to
get to that Med
Park station. Their landscape plan one component of that is
this detention area
they are intending to provide screening through by use of
trees all the way
around the detention pond to screen it from the right of
way there at Hudson
Wood and from you know any residents to the south or in
future phases to the
west. There are existing single-family homes on property to
the west and north
of this development so that does require a type B buffer
between multifamily and
single-family they're proposing that along the entire
property line here on
the north and west sides of this as well as street trees
throughout the
development along these private drives and street trees
along Hudson Wood. On
the south side very similar concept they're proposing
street trees throughout
as well as along Hudson Wood. At this point the applicant
had not developed
elevations for these buildings that they did state their
intent to comply with
the architectural requirements outlined in the DDC for
multifamily development.
Again notifications were sent we received the one neutral
request or
neutral response and in this case staff is recommending
approval of this because
we feel it is consistent with the existing land use pattern
it's
consistent with the zoning designations in the area as well
as the future land
use plan however we do suggest a few conditions as part of
this approval. One
of those would be that the development substantially comply
with the approved
site plan and landscape plans that have been attached. We
also propose that the
development since we didn't have elevations to look at we
're requiring
that they do meet or exceed the requirements of the DDC. We
do feel the
need to place restrictions to limit certain materials in
this case EFAS and
HDO board to a maximum of 10% because that we feel that m
asonry
materials provide a more long-lasting and durable product
so we would like to
see that limitation and we also propose we don't know what
their signage would
be at this point but we're proposing that they only use
monument signs and
building signs for these developments to limit the use of
any large pole signs or
anything on Hudson Wood Drive to keep with that residential
feel. And at this
point I can answer any questions. Commissioner Rossell.
Thank you chair. This might be
moving for my clarification the rezoning from RCCD to RCR2
was to eliminate the
need for the commercial requirements but the SUP is to
eliminate these for
multi- eliminate the need for multi-use. Can you help me
understand the
differences between the rezoning the SUP? Certainly. Go
ahead Tatey. So the reason
there's two limitations that are applied under RCCD one of
those states that
there be ground floor commercial development as part of a
mixed-use
development to get multifamily on the upper stories of a
building the second
limitation requires that it either be part of a mixed-use
development or with
an SUP. One of those limitations carries over into RCR2 and
it's the
second that allows either a mixed-use development or
approval of an SUP and so
in this case they chose not to provide that commercial and
sought the SUP. That
makes sense. Is the second question to have is the parking
requirement one to
one unit to parking spot? For so for the northern property
that you see here the
parking requirement is broken down based on the number of
bedrooms there is a
provision in the DDC for senior housing to be able to one
to one ratio so that
would apply to the southern portion of the development. I
didn't do the calculations but is
the calculations for the the northern I guess the stand it
's the standard one
it's 462 spots is that how many beds they have? No the
ratios depend on the
number of bedrooms so a one bedroom unit I believe is
parked at 1.25 one and a
half spaces and then that number changes based on the
number of bedrooms. So my
question is the 472 the minimum does it meet it is it above
where does that the
472 parking spaces? That is the correct number of spaces.
It's the minimum? Yes
yeah it meets the requirement. Okay perfect okay thanks. Mr
. Beck. Thank you
chair. First just let me state as a senior who likes to
ride his bike I'm
sorely disappointed that they are not planning on putting
bicycle lanes and
racks in there. To be clear these are not SROs. No. Okay.
Information provided that
there will be 40 on-street parking spaces allotted I'm
assuming these will
be on Hudson Wood that being the only street there. Yes
yeah there are parking
spaces shown here along Hudson Wood on the north and south
side of the drive.
North and south okay. Would the and you talked about in the
backup background
information talked about 8% of the area would be open space
is that what the the
pool courtyard area? The pool can count towards that open
space it's intended to
be any recreational space so here on the northern side you
can see I did circle
in blue and forgot to mention they have open spaces kind of
courtyards intended
between the buildings and that does include a pool. Okay.
Also in the illustrations I had it indicated there was a
retention
detention pond inside the Hudson compound. Yeah. Yes they
are proposing a pond on
the interior of this development as well as that separate
detention pond I
believe the amount of volume they needed to treat required
both of those areas.
Okay so I'm assuming this is probably gonna be decorated up
to have the appeal of a park or something.
I would assume so and I don't think they show a little bit
of landscaping on here
but I'm not sure what their exact aesthetic plans are for
that pond. Okay
and appreciate the fact that the developers proposing a
type B 10-foot
landscape barrier on the north end but can you go back to
your Google shot of
what the property actually looks like? If you I don't know
if you can get any close up but on the
north side on that other lot that's not part of this there
's a lot of
trees there so do we need that 10-foot barrier at this time
? I'm not certain if
those trees fall on their property or on the other property
but at this time
because this has an existing residential use as does this
they're proposing that
buffer to provide that in case those trees go away with any
future development
on the northern property. Okay and I raise it a little bit
I gotta let me just
make a brief statement here I'm worried about how this
development will impact
the land immediately north of it the dense cluster of trees
there will surely
be impacted if this sort of development is expanded as per
our future land use
map that's quite possible. As we prepare to update our tree
code that seeks to
preserve at least 30% tree canopy this is one of those
areas that Haywood
talked about that's in an undeveloped area that we could
lose that and I would
seriously hope that city planning somebody within the city
playing part
maybe even parks and recreation would recognize this
potential problem as we
move forward and seek ways to some of this land aside from
green space and/or
a park area that would benefit the expanding communities
that are going up
there because if you realize if you take a look at this
there isn't any park area
over there at all no real green open space and if we're
going to open this up
to this kind of development it seems like a real good place
to put a park and
kind of kill two birds with one stone preserve those trees
as best we can so I
just wanted that to go into the record and that we don't
overlook that as we
move forward and developers come in and want to build
something there okay thank
you
any other questions for staff? I think we're going to call
a recess here at 5 50
and get food right quick and then get back in here as quick
as we can but I
know we've got two big items to still try to get in and
done before work
sessions over recess 5 50. Good afternoon and welcome back
to our work session I
might call us back in order at 5 57 I think our next order
of business will be
to get an update on our public hearing or it's gonna be
item Z 16 - 0 0 2 3
part 7 I believe. I'm gonna call on Julie Wyatt for
presentation of that. Good
evening I'm Julie Wyatt senior planner with the city of
Denton I know we've
been over some of this so I'll go quickly on some parts
some parts we
didn't actually get to you in the last work session we'll
take a little more
time with that I know we're we're bumping up against the
clock but so the
location to remind you the location of the subject property
is south of
Scripture between normal and Bryan it's about 1250 feet
north of the UNT campus
which is about a five to ten minute walk. I should also
mention that the request
includes three parcels there's one larger parcel here and
then two smaller
parcels you can see that my yellow line that shows the
subject property cuts
through this larger parcel that one has split zoning and we
'll see that in just
a minute. So the request before you is to consider rezoning
approximately 1.39
acres from downtown residential to district to downtown
commercial general
district. So we'll take at the current current zoning and
land use pattern if
you remember my busy map from two weeks ago we're gonna go
over it briefly
again. So here is the subject property again it's outlined
in black this this
large parcel here's where that split zoning comes into play
the north part of
this large parcel already has the DCG zoning district the
southern part is
that dr2 it is the subject property is situated in about a
four block area
that's north of the UNT campus that's a real mixed use area
it includes single
family single family that functions as multifamily multif
amily dwellings and
commercial development so there's a lot going on in that
four block four block
area and the subject property is actually developed with a
commercial
building or an institutional building that's been vacant
for some time and
then also there's two single family dwellings on the on the
additional two
parcels. If we'll look if we'll take a broader look at the
area and look at the
surrounding neighborhoods from that from the from the
adjacent properties you'll
see that there the surrounding neighborhoods are
traditional
established neighborhoods they have a zoning designation of
primarily in our
three that doesn't permit multifamily it's it's one of our
low density
residential zoning districts it doesn't permit commercial
or multifamily
development. If you'll look just to the north of the of the
request across
scripture you'll see you've got NRMU 12 as well as NRMU
these areas are
developed with multifamily uses also some single family and
some office uses
so there's there's mixed use in this area as well and then
in those areas that
have that in our three zoning district designation those
established
neighborhoods we have an additional layer on some of those
and that's our
historic districts we have the West Oak Historic District
here and then the Oak
Hickory Historic District here those if there are any
facade changes proposed
for any structures within those districts they would be
required to
obtain approval for a certificate of appropriateness from
the Historic
Landmark Commission so that's an additional layer on those
areas and then
to the south here we have the UNT campus any questions on
that okay so the future
land use is neighborhood university compatibility area and
that encompasses
kind of this this four block area north of UNT and these
are areas that are
affected by the universities within our city and in this
instance it's UNT but
this also affects TWU in some instances the intent is to
create compatible form
and land uses for areas that serve both the established
neighborhoods as well as
the universities UNT is growing they intend to grow they're
planning on
growing and so this is these areas are intended to serve
those university as
well as neighborhood areas the intent is to provide gradual
transition in scale
use and character and also to encourage uses in close
proximity to encourage
walking bicycling the multimodal transportation so you can
see that the
the future land use map kind of coincides with some of the
zoning that we
have and that those areas that have that in our three
zoning designation are our
the future land use designation is that low density
residential and then that
area with the NRMU and NRMU 12 is community or I'm sorry
neighborhood
mixed use so that coincides with some of the zoning that's
already in place so
the considerations that we looked at when we analyzed the
request first of all
we looked at subchapter three of the Denton development
code the criteria for
approval the first does it meet does the request meet the
future land use
designation of neighborhood university compatibility DCG
and does have the
density and the types of uses that that you typically see
within a university
area so it provides that density and commercial development
within the
proximity of DCG because of the uses and the density f
osters walkability
livability and a vibrancy on a track that's been in disuse
for several years
staff looked at it as potentially a catalyst for revital
ization in that
area between UNT and those established neighborhoods and
this current zoning
pattern provides the physical barriers necessary to
transition between the
higher intensity and density development that DCG has and
then the lower
intensity development in the surrounding neighborhoods let
's look at a map so
show you what I mean so for instance this existing DCG
permits development to
a height of 100 feet however the the dr2 that's adjacent to
the those in our three
neighborhoods only permits development to a height of 45
feet the NRMU and NRMU
12 also stepped down the development I believe NRMU permits
a maximum height of
65 feet so it it scales down the development from that DCG
to those those
neighborhoods surrounding the other criteria for approval
is as is there
adequate infrastructure to support development in the area
infrastructure
needs assessment will be done at the time of platting and
also site plan and
of course it comes without saying that any development that
wants to get a
building permit or site plan approval must meet the
infrastructure
requirements within the Denton Development Code in order to
obtain
those permits other considerations we looked at the
proposed rezoning does
include the three tracks the one larger which has the split
zoning and then the
two smaller ones the and the intent of this rezoning is to
consolidate the
zoning designation in this area and that the site is
currently underutilized with
the vacant building on the site and the rezoning would
permit the entire property
to redevelop under consistent zoning regulations resulting
in a more cohesive
development and we'll look at a map so the applicant has
expressed an interest
to develop a total of three acres so it would be the
subject property which is
in red and then and then the property to the north so
encompasses a total of three
acres so the rezoning to DCG would allow this to develop
under those consistent
DCG zoning regulations to allow consistent development I've
got site
photos once again I've used some of Google because they do
better job than
me so here is normal Street looking north towards Scripture
here is one of
those what here's one of the subject property and one is
off-camera here's
here's that use that's adjacent to Scripture this is on
Bryan Street looking
north once again there's the subject property and then here
's some of the
photos of development that's across the street I believe
this is on normal and
then these two are on Scripture so just shows you kind of
what what the area is
like additional considerations we looked at there were two
neighborhood meetings
associated with this request and one of the one of the
concerns was
compatibility in scale and that's something that the future
land use
designation also talks about and so staff looked at that
and the DIN
development code does have some requirements in it that
that work to
address differences in scale and to address compatibility
issues in site
design so one of those is the residential proximity slope
so if
someone is is proposing a multifamily development and it's
adjacent to to a
single-family residential development either by property
line or across the
street so across the right-of-way that multifamily
development would have to
comply with the residential proximity slope the intent of
this is to ensure
that the that development maintains a human scale on this
on the street on the
sidewalk and the adjacent property so here's how it's
calculated you go up 40
feet and then you step the development back at an angle of
35 degrees from that
40 feet so it not only is is used at the property line it's
also used when when
abutting a single-family use or district across the street
so it's in order to
maintain or to minimize the visual impact of that
development on the street
also I know this was this was a big question at the last
meeting so
hopefully I will say it better this time so there are also
minimum setbacks and
buffers within the didn't development code now after our
discussion at the
last meeting we went back and looked at it and these don't
actually apply to
this development because there's no single-family use
adjacent to this to
this property within the area but it's part of a larger
discussion and how our
mixed-use districts and how a mix of uses actually can can
be placed next to
each other and be compatible and form commissioner back
thank you chair Judy
said there's no residential dwelling that butts up against
this it is actually it
functions as a multifamily okay because that that is the
one on the south side
of the yes sir yes sir thanks so so we I just wanted to be
sure that's good
I'm calculating okay no I that's troublesome the it's a
house and it's
not mandated how it function I would think and and so I
think when you're
talking about it's functioning as a multifamily now that
doesn't carry on in
perpetuity I would think am I right that that that could
vacillate so then we're
using something that could vacillate by lease to make a
decision that won't
vacillate am I that they're not gonna move their building
but we're gonna base
what they do with their building on something that that's
kit it's governed
by a lease am I right I guess I'll try to respond to that
and I'm an all-main
say but we do look at that use at that point in time at
time of development and
and these setbacks as well as buffers talk about use and
not zoning districts
so you're actually budding so you're actually your those
design guidelines
are applied in terms of the use which is merely a
requirement of the Denton
Development Code that we would be implementing right I
guess I guess my
point would be I just I mean just overall I have a problem
governing
something that won't move by something I mean because I'm
certain you tip your
hand almost to where that person says okay well now there's
one person I mean
I just don't even know how we go about getting that
information I think the
intent and I'm sorry to interrupt no I apologize that was
rude the intent of
that requirement if we use another example to explain why
it's being
implemented here is because it it's not specific to just a
certain zoning
district so if we look at our industrial or non residential
zoning districts
because of the way the build out or the built-out
environment is we have a lot
of residential uses that may not be in a residential zoning
district however the
abutting zoning and use is not residential so in an effort
to protect
residential structures or loan residential structures in
non
residential zoning districts to visually screen or provide
some kind of mechanism
physical mechanism to be a good neighbor so to speak for
the lack of a better
phrase is why it would why that intent was built into the
Development Code
Commissioner Ozil thank you I just wanted to maybe add on
to Commissioner
Hesbeth just so I understand if that single family detached
home had one
family living in it it would be 20 feet that's setback
right 20 foot setback
not a buffer right yes sir so it'd be a 20 foot setback and
they can build 10
stories so that could be 70 feet above 30 so if that to
Commissioner's point if
it was a single family living there that setback would be
90 feet but because
there's two people living there there's no setback above
and beyond currently
that's my understanding so let's let's talk about if I can
attack your question
differently to answer it the reason why the use is not
being classified as a
single-family residence is because there are multiple
meters so in terms of how
many people are living there I don't know but that
structure has been
converted from a single-family dwelling unit to use of
multiple bedrooms within
that dwelling in it which then changes its use as it
relates to the setback I
believe you are correct when we do the calculation but the
setback is from the
use so we would actually determine and Julie correct me if
I'm wrong please we
would actually determine the setback from the structure
itself and you would
work backwards 20 feet and then from there start adding on
depending on the
height of your building and of course the height of your
building depending on
the zoning district would then dictate so yes would it imp
ede potentially I
believe impede is an incorrect word but would it impact the
height of a building
or a structure adjacent to a single-family use it could
potentially is
depending on the size of the lot too okay and that's all
governed by the
development yes and just for my identification this is
slightly
opt-out fix it'll be a quick question if there is a shed or
detached garage then
the setback would be for that building so if it was a
residential use so a shed
or a detached garage would not then it would be the
residential use itself okay
thank you and then also landscape by person yes mr. Taylor
so I just want to
I'm gonna clarify this because I I haven't heard this
definition of
multi-family before and the other commissioners were
talking about leases
but you're saying it's because there are two meters two
electric meters I believe
there more than two meters on the side which then begs the
question is it being
used as a single-family residence or is it being used as
not a multi-family
complex but is it used being used for multiple residents
use yeah and so I
think this is this is a I'm almost certain that that
definition isn't
outlined in the DDC that that was one we're trying to find
a good definition
for the use and I have concerns about the murkiness here
because somebody could
own their home and they could rent out a bedroom and they
would or two bedrooms
to two separate college students I have a friend who does
that pays his mortgage
by by having roommates basically yes and that wouldn't be
multi-family so
let's assume let's take your example into consideration
then the question is
do each one of those rooms have their own separate meters
and utilities right
then it is no longer functioning as a residential use so we
've got two issues
happening one is the definition of specific uses and then
how do you
interpret or determine intent of an existing structure in
this case I
wouldn't be in a position to say categorically that that is
a
residential use it may look like a residential structure to
the south but
it's actually being utilized for non-residential use so I
can then make
that determination and another challenge here is these are
both residential uses
there might be four people sleeping in this house and four
people sleeping in
the house next door the house next door only has one meter
there might be four
leases on each because it's college area a lot of times
rooms rented by the room
exactly and it addresses building code the building code
criteria also then
bleed into this so in terms of is there a clear-cut
definition saying should
there be if there is more than one meter on a property what
is that use that has
not been clearly identified in the Denton Development Code
yet so the goal
then is to look at and again we're deviant a little bit
because we're
talking about zoning and the zoning on the property not the
specific use or
development of so if I do digress legal please tell me
nicely no no stop my
questions and we can do this later because we're running
out of time well just for
clarification so currently for this particular project that
property as use
is multifamily and not single-family for this particular
item correct it's not
being used as a single-family residence correct let me
repeat to put it in those
terms would be easier okay just just like I'm gonna
continue briefly it's
just like we have house houses single-family people operate
a business
under out of all up and down on Elm Street local Street
those uses are no
longer single-family it may look like a house but it's now
a business so we have
a similar type situation that this looks like a single-
family house has four
meters on it it is a functioning and used as a multifamily
use at this time
okay Commissioner that's good briefly my point is that that
's that's one
flexible that it could they they could pull the meters off
tomorrow and we
have a giant building next to it and in two I think it's
important to note that
who makes that determination who's the final say if it's
not in the deed if
it's not in the development code who makes that final
determination I mean
because I don't know that I want to make the logical leap
that just because you
want to divide your utility bill up however you want to
divide it and and
you want to have as many meters as you want you want to
take an extension cord
and run it to your neighbor's house I don't know that I
want to make a
determination on any of those things on how people govern
their finances so I
want to know who's the final say so in making that
determination that that's
multifamily and that's what we're gonna apply because if it
comes to this board
let us vote on it if it's if someone arbitrarily it's gonna
hand that down
who is that I just want to make it clear for the record is
the property that the
house is sitting on how is that zoned DR2 and that allows
single-family it does
it does so it's not a non-conforming structure no it's just
being converted
it's not even related as we we don't know we don't know we
hadn't talked to
him I don't think anybody if someone has looked at the
outside of their house
when they drove by because they're opportunist and and and
have not talked
to that I'd love to hear who we talked to so what she's
saying is because it's
not clear and they didn't development code the director of
development services
has the discretion in order to determine what the use is
and so they determine
that many times through a reasonable method and the
reasonable method is
looking to see if there are multiple meters on the property
that's something
that happens quite often right director services
manal made that you just happen to have her here at the the
dais okay I want to
pull us back on topic because what we're talking about is a
zoning issue tonight
and the whole place of where we've gotten off to is how
this the step back
would be if it was a single family we're not even in here
talking about a site
plan building we're talking about zoning only and we're way
off in what the use
is next door and how that may or may not trigger
residential slopes I want to
bring our Commission back to the issue at hand which is a
zoning issue and that
issue can be in more detail when it comes back before us so
anything else if
it's about what we just talked about let's try to get done
if it's a
different subject
what is the year the parking requirements between the
different
options available for different zoning you know for multif
amily because on the
one hand I see the word walkability look at the map and if
somebody's gonna be in
the school of music or the school of business or even to go
to the student
union building that's not walkability that's either gonna
be bus or car or
something and so I'm just wondering you know will the
parking requirements
change what size we're kind of same thing we're off on site
anti stuff and
we need to stick to zoning because we're about out of time
have you got a zoning
question absolutely Commissioner Hitsmith so zoning
wires because I'm not gonna be here in a little bit I don't
think I don't see
when I looked I pinned out Google Earth I think that the
zoning is what it is
there's nothing we can do to roll that back but I don't
find any structure in
anywhere near that but for if I use their radius that 10
that 10 mile radius
I do believe the only thing that would possibly purport to
be the same size is
on Fry Street and that's the whatever the name of those
those apartments are
but there's nothing else in in in anything in sight in
Google I mean pan
out as far as you want so zoning wise I think it's zoned as
is there's nothing
we can do about that and I think to up zone any part of
that so that they can
then have a structure that's that trumps anything in that
in that area is is just
not it's not productive I just don't think I've driven it I
've driven it four
or five times and that zoning as is there's nothing you can
do about that
but to up zone that that area by the houses and you kind of
you're going
downhill and those are two-story apartments all day long
two-story
apartments all the way to boardmans and then you got to go
down the street to
get to something that purports to be the size even city
place or whatever that is
where flow hospital used to be does not it doesn't wear the
same because it's on
the slope if they're willing to dig a hole and make it
lower then that I think
that that matters but just on its face as it's structured
it would it would
absolutely bury anything in that area and it just it would
it I don't think
zoning wise to change it that puts it on us versus as is
that's not our fault
it'd be in a hundred feet or if it's less than a hundred
feet well if I read
that I read the the narrative and if if if they want to put
a hundred feet on the
front of that making and that that by code is that that is
fine but I don't
think in good faith that it's it's right to then bury the
house down the hill
because I'm trying to negotiate with a gun to my head I
just don't I don't like
it well I'll throw something at you and maybe it's a
different point of view
maybe they're not doing a gun to their head maybe they've
heard the neighbors
concerns about it and maybe they've asked for a zone to the
other to drop
the building to make it more consistent and it has less of
an impact over the
whole neighborhood versus saying we can build what we want
and we're gonna do a
hundred foot here versus saying you know what people are
concerned about it we'll
we'll drop the thing and help us with some zoning on the
other and make a less
impact versus somebody's here saying we're gonna do this
one way or the other
so I think for from my point of view I think that's
something for us to talk
about as far as the zoning is concerned is whether we want
to rezone it or not
and give them an opportunity to do something of a less
impact versus saying
we're not going to rezone it and then they go build it and
it's a hundred feet
tall and everybody goes well maybe we should have done
something different and
so that's just my point of view on that so I want to stick
with zoning is there
anything else is owning that we want to talk about on this
to keep going
Commissioner Beck thank you chair and I hear what you're
saying chair but even
though it's not a 10 or 11 story it's it's proposed to be a
five story and the
footprint for this building still is is quite dramatically
different than what's
there I don't fully agree with the assessment that says in
our background
material that mixed-use character of this area is
compatible with DCG along
scripture I mean if you look at this building it sticks out
even when we do
the residential slope thing I mean it's a it's a David and
Goliath thing it may
technically sound good but visually it's gonna it's gonna
stick out there and I
think we're here for zoning issue simply what happened in
2002 what were the city
people thinking when they zone that area of scripture DCG
in the first place I
think it had something to do with flow we don't get into
detail on that but the
fact that flow isn't there anymore it seems like the proper
thing would have
been to revert this thing back to dr2 which is probably
what it was so I'm
gonna stop there and interrupt just a second to be the
point of the matter is
it is zoned that and we're not in a position to down zone
it and so I think
we're left with the practicality of that is what the zoning
is there and the
piece next to it or what are we or aren't gonna do with
that and I was gonna build up to it but I'll go ahead okay
we're short on time
and I know we still have a whole nother item we haven't got
to and it's almost
630 right our options are to approve it and they build this
thing or we deny it
and they build the monstrosity everybody's worried about
but I think
there is an option that we need to bring up and it's called
that I would approve
it with an amendment to it to recommend approval subject to
conditions with a
mixed-use residential overlay that's in the DCC DDC and I
think it's something
that will serve both purposes allow somebody to build
something there but at
a level that's compatible for that neighborhood that the
residents can
accept and yet we can still have some population so if we
don't have time to
discuss that further I would like to bring that up well I
think you might
find some consensus to at least from me as a commissioner
to talk about that in
our in our next meeting so Julie would you like to continue
on your
going or yeah I'm gonna announce I'm gonna have to recuse
myself from this
I'm an and for those that are listening in our public
meeting in council
chambers we're gonna run 15 minutes 15 minutes late so we
will try to get our
meeting reconvened and starting council chambers about
hopefully about 645 and
I'm going to turn the meeting over to the vice chair
Commissioner Taylor at
this time thank you chair so now we're going to item FR 16
residential reply and blocks one two block B of Hale Est
ates and vice chair
Taylor I would ask legal to chime in and give us some
discussion points as it
relates to this at reply the interest in this particular
item and so I wanted to
go over some legal points with you all on the Commission I
've received a lot of
questions especially that are legal oriented regarding this
item so I just
want to put it out there on the record so that we're all
aware of what our
position is the first question was why is this replat on
not on consent agenda
and why does it require a public hearing and the answer to
that is that the local
government code does require a residential replat to have a
public
hearing it used to previously in a previous version of the
statute require
or allow for a 20% objection trigger I don't I don't know
if you all recall but
on on zoning on zoning items you have that 20% objection
and it triggers a
super majority requirement at council this trigger was a 20
% objection that
triggered a sort of a method for neighbors to object in
writing and if
66% of those objected then the item would not be able to be
passed that was
found to be unconstitutional by the Fort Worth Court of
Appeals and that portion
was removed the objection portion but they kept the public
hearing portion in
the statute so it's a public hearing without a real
consequence or a way for
neighbors to move forward through objection however this is
a plat so the
the law does state that you have very little discretion
when you review a
plat even a replat and what the law states is that so long
as it meets all
the requirements of state law and meets the technical
requirements of the city
then we cannot deny it because it's a ministerial not a
discretionary type
action so I wanted you all to be aware that there's very
little room you can
look at your job is to double-check staff to make sure that
it did meet all
the technical requirements as they present them to you but
you can't really
look at anything beyond that when it comes to a plat the
other item that I
wanted to talk about was this restrictive covenant issue
and I know
last time we had talked on the record and I let you know
that restrictive
covenants we cannot enforce them as a government body the
only person or the
only city that can do that in the state of Texas is Houston
they were given this
special authority to do that but we can't in fact case law
shows that we the
platting is completely irrelevant to the restrictive
covenant and the platting is
not a properly plotted law does not affect any kind of
amendment or removal
of a restrictive covenant for those purposes because we
were able to act
outside of that and just look at the application that's
before us we moved in
that direction last time between last time and this time I
did just out of
sort of a gesture to the neighbors look at their
restrictive covenant that they
were provided to us and I did note that I do not believe
that it is a violation
of the restrictive covenant the way that the wording is
written there's a section
basically saying that it cannot be subdivided if the
resulting lots are
less than an acre or if they're less than 150 feet frontage
and both of these
lots separately meet those requirements so in my legal
opinion there was no even
though I can't give outside legal advice I'm giving the
advice to you there was
no violation of those restrictive covenants in my view
there's also a
provision where it has to be used for residential use since
we're not
rezoning it there is no effect to the restrictive covenants
that are currently
existing on the property another item that was requested a
lot was information
concerning the dam that's on the property the restricted
covenant actually
says if the dam is existing on private property that the
other neighbors have
no interest or access to the dam however despite that I did
look into it and it
looks like when the plat was originally done in the 1960s
the dam was a very
much a part of the drainage for the subdivision and in fact
the street
drainage goes all into that particular retaining area and
it is in our drain
adjudgment so any kind of attempted removal of that dam
that's going to have
to go through the city and if it affects the drainage they
would have to show
some sort of major mitigation downstream that would provide
a replacement in lieu
of having that dam in that location in addition to that
there is it what's
called a riparian buffer as you are aware what those are so
any disturbance
on the perimeter of the water body is going to require also
a permit or an a
essay that would come before this Commission so I don't
know to what extent
we may share that in the regular session I think we have
some neighbors here but
I wanted to go ahead and talk about those legal issues put
him out there for
the Commission I wanted to do it in an open session so that
everybody knows what
advice that I'm providing to you because I know it's very
very important for the
neighbors and given that does anybody have any questions
Commissioner Roselle
thank you vice chair we have a letter email from Jason
Denise Thomas saying
that they weren't notified what's the repercussion I mean
that's a state rule
that they have to be notified if they didn't get notified
what's the
consequence of that where's the burden of proof for
notification I know we
talked about this a lot because you're back enjoys the
topic so I'm curious where
has the city proven that there was a certified notice can
you tell me more
about what this is regarding sure if I can dive in just to
process of
notification we you know we're all aware on this Commission
that we have to mail
out a notice within 200 feet of the request that being said
we use the tax
rolls that are provided to us from our Department of
Technical Services that
gets those from the from DCOT and then we take those parc
els they provide us
those parcels and we use that data so whatever info that we
do receive now
there are instances where because those tax rules are
updated once a year that
we get that information there is a bit of a lag time so
when we do send out the
certified mail let's assume that there's change of
ownership and it goes to the
old owner then that is something we've still followed the
tax roll we've still
followed what's on DCOT and that does happen occasionally
so it's not that we
didn't that we notified in error it's just that we sent
notice to whatever's
latest on the record and that being said I think we did
check and we did see that
that was sent but not to the most recent property owner so
if they've been there
because we update once a year so to speak that is why that
we received the
certified tax roll that is why there's sometimes a lag I
appreciate that
explanation but wouldn't the address of 3,400 Montecito not
have changed no but
the owner the owner address might be different from what
who's residing there
so when so just as an example you can have several
properties and have one
single address which is either one of those properties or
it's a separate
address altogether so there is there are often this is we
've seen this often not
just in Denton but in other communities that I've
experienced where you have the
ownership address might not be the physical address of the
site okay thank
you and it just just as a side matter there there really is
no defect so long
as we follow the statute and the statute requires that we
go by the latest
certified role so as long as we've done that then even if
there are some that
did not get it although we want everybody to be made aware
and noticed
it's not going to be a defect or fatal to any vote that we
have this evening
the daily per the requirement so we have to put notice
within the daily as well
okay thank you Commissioner Sullivan thank you Commissioner
Roselle what was the last name of the people that you
mentioned this letters
from Jason and Denise Thomas's pay is the second letter on
here is kind of three
paragraphs there's another one from the bulls to say that
they were not notified
either within 200 feet so I don't know again hey the answer
no and again you
know sometimes let's work backwards a little bit sometimes
we do receive the
certified mail comes back to us where it's not been picked
up so that that
has occurred I'm not saying that occurred with this
specific application
those are one of the flaws with certified mail which we've
talked at at
length about and then secondly what Haley did is she went
she tried to
discern what actually came back and where there were disc
repancies with the
most recent tax certified tax roll that we have given the
lag I've just discussed
and as a result there were some that possibly went to a
previous owner of the
property and the intent obviously is to try and notify as
Jennifer has indicated
to everybody and to have the most current so unfortunately
we just and we
are following the state I just didn't know if there were
two people or you
know what have you so look at these two okay thank you
Commissioner Beck thank you Vice Chair speaking hypoth
etically just throwing
information out there for my edification when we go in and
we have to cast a boat
on this it seems like the concern of some citizens is that
if we approve that
replant that the condition of that dam will deteriorate and
affect the
character of the neighborhood but it seems clear that that
has to be
maintained as part of the drainage there so that's a
concern that's probably gone
by the wayside I'm thinking I empathize on both sides the
right the proper owner
to split his property and the concern of the area residents
there that move there
for a purpose enjoy the benefits of that lake and all that
but it seems like
technically and legally we you know we we can't if we vote
in favor of one or
the other at that point they take their concerns to a court
is that correct you
mean if we were to approve it right or deny it or to my
party or the other then
their only recourse at that point would be right if we deny
it then we're
potentially at risk for a writ of mandamus if we approve it
then the
neighbors may sue the other neighbor I don't think the city
is liable for
okay thank you
Commissioner Sullivan is the is the dam maintained by the
homeowners association
or the owner there is no homeowners Association in this
case so the owner
which private property the owners been maintaining it and
that's really the
reason I think he said last time in the record that he
wanted to sell because
there's a gentleman behind him that would like to maintain
it because I
guess his grandchildren playing back there something like
that but whoever
gains ownership of it will be responsible for the
maintenance of it
and we would be the responsible for enforcing I thought
that was still part
of Southridge that's not it's part of yeah for strange it's
for strange I'm
sorry for actually Montecito actually yes all right and
with that we will
close our work session or end our work session and we will
reconvene in five
minutes in the council chambers and the time at six we will
close our work
session at 640
good evening and welcome to the city of Denton planning and
zoning Commission
meeting for March the 8th 2017 this meeting has been duly
posted and a
quorum is present and I'm gonna call our meeting to order
at 650 our first
order of business will be to stand and give the pledge the
US and the Texas
flag
before we get started I apologize that we're running a
little bit late we
obviously by the room count and also in our work session we
've got a couple of
items with a lot of discussion and took a little longer in
work session so
apologize that we ran late to get started this evening in
that vein we
also have one change to the order that will announce at the
beginning of our
meeting on our public hearing section our item a is going
to be moved to the
very end of our meeting after item E so we will go in order
of B C D E and then
come back and finish with a with that announcement I'm
going to move us on to
our item 2 on our agenda which will be consider approval of
the planning and
zoning Commission meetings minutes and I will take those
two in separate motions
Commissioner Taylor I move approval of the February 15 2017
minutes
Commissioner back second any discussion or comments seeing
none I'll call for a
vote on board
issue on the February 15th meeting because he was not here
for the special
call meeting
I'm sorry that special called I'm sorry that was I was I
chose the wrong date to
move withdraw my motion withdraw your motion I'll move
approval on 15th
Commissioner Ellis I will second second any discussion
seeing none I'll call for
a vote on the board
motion carries 4-0 with two recuse Commissioner Taylor try
this again I
move approval of the February 22nd 2017 minutes okay you
sure you can do that
okay good Commissioner Beck second okay we have a first and
second for approval
any discussion seeing none a call for a vote on board
motion carries 4-0 with two
recuse now move us to our consent agenda Commissioner Beck
okay Commissioner
Roselle second okay we have a we have a first and a second
for approval any
discussion seeing none will call for a vote on board motion
carries 6-0 that
will move us to our items of individual consideration and I
will call on Haley
for presentation
good evening this is case ADP 1620 from the Mission Street
offices the request
is consider approval approval of an alternative development
plan for an
initial phase of a proposed office park development on
approximately 1.65 acres
the property is located at the corner of Fort Worth Drive
and Mission Street you
can see outlined in yellow the initial phase that is part
of this ADP request
the area outlined in red represents all three parcels that
are intended to be
involved in the full development currently the property is
zoned
community mixed-use general the future land use for this
area is community
mixed-use which allows for predominantly commercial uses
that are clustered in
close proximity as well as a mix of institutional and
residential uses this
represents the site plan for the development you can see
the phase that
we're looking at here involves three buildings as well as
an area off to the
side that is going to be used as a detention pond so as
part of this ADP
request the applicant has multiple areas of the Denton
development code site
design standards that they are requesting to deviate from
the first of
those is a requirement for non-residential buildings that
the primary
orientation of the building be towards the street the
intent of this is to
provide buildings that present well to the street with
clearly defined
entrances for vehicular and pedestrian traffic so as you
can see looking back
at the site plan these buildings are intended to be
oriented inwards towards
this campus feel that they're trying to create with the
larger development so
especially the buildings on lot one and lot two would have
their rear and side
spacing towards the street in this case the applicant
provided elevations
for the first building the one that was located with its
rear-facing Fort Worth
Drive so we can see here the front elevation on the top
that would be
facing towards the inside of the development as well as one
of the side
elevations and on the second page we can see the rear
elevation they are proposing
architectural enhancements it's a masonry constructed
building and they're
using windows and awnings and some repeating architectural
features to
provide visual interest and you know it visibly interesting
building from the
street rather than just a solid wall we can also see from
their landscape plan
they intend to provide at least five shrubs in this area as
well as a
sidewalk there would also be sidewalk running along Fort
Worth Drive here that
they're providing connectivity to throughout the
development as well one
of their other requested deviations is from the parking
requirements so for a
general office use as they're proposing here the DDC
requires one space for every
450 square feet of floor area that would be a total of 30
or 27 spaces for the
three buildings that they're proposing at this point the
site plan shows that
they're intending to provide 39 spaces so 12 over what is
required there and
that triggers the requirement in sub chapter 13 that excess
parking above the
required number be constructed of pervious surface in lieu
of providing
pervious surface for those extra spaces the applicant is
proposing to provide a
detention pond here off to the side of these buildings that
would be
constructed to I swim standards so when they get to the
final plotting phase the
exact calculations for the volume and sizing of that pond
will be determined
and the pond will have to be designed to hold the water
quality volume generated
by this parking lot and the excess spaces for 24 hours
because the overall
size of the full office park campus that they've shown us
is over 40,000 square
feet even at this initial phase we're trying to make sure
that the site
addresses all of the large-scale development standards in
the Denton
Development Code which are triggered when a development is
over 40,000 square
feet two of the requirements there the applicant is
proposing to deviate from
one is the requirement for a masonry wall around or on any
common boundary line
between the development and a single-family property and
the second is
that mechanical equipment be located greater than a hundred
feet from any
residential property in this case the property adjoining
this to the south
does have a single-family residence on it and another
requirement within the
DDC is that a type C buffer which is a 15 foot planted area
with six trees and
25 shrubs per 100 feet of length be provided between a
commercial and
single-family use in this case that because it is a large-
scale development
would require that buffer as well as that masonry wall the
applicant has
proposed instead of providing the wall to provide the
required buffer and
intensify it with at this case their calculation showed
five additional trees
and 19 additional shrubs in lieu of that wall I've circled
in red here an area
where mechanical equipment primarily air conditioning units
would be located
within approximately 30 feet of the property line with that
single-family
residential use so well within that hundred feet limb
hundred foot limit and
the applicant has proposed to screen all of that equipment
with
architecturally compatible materials and plantings which
were not specified at
this time this ADP does satisfy the criteria for approval
of an ADP
outlined in subchapter 13 it is a logical location at this
hard corner of
highway and Mission Street for an office park campus as
well as it's
compatible with that community mixed-use future land use
designation so staff
does recommend all of the recommend approval of this ADP
with several
conditions the first of those is that the development
substantially conformed
to the attached site plan the second is that we require it
substantially comply
with the landscape plan with two modifications the first of
those is in
front of the building on Fort Worth Drive in lieu of
strictly these shrubs
shown here staff recommends they provide a five foot width
of planting area that
could feature tall grasses as well as the shrubs to provide
variation and
soften the transition between the street and the building
frontage the second
requirement is that we recommend a six foot opaque masonry
screening wall be
provided on that southern boundary in addition to the
required buffer the
intent of the requirement for a masonry wall is to provide
a permanent screening
and buffer between two seemingly incompatible uses in this
case because
this is smaller buildings broken up over this larger lot
staff felt that six feet
would could be sufficient as the screening rather than
eight feet but the
landscaping buffer would not provide that screening year-
round that was the
intent of this so we recommend the wall be added back in as
part of this the
other recommendations are that the screening for the
mechanical equipment be
constructed of masonry materials that are compatible with
the building's
design and in addition to that we recommend planting of shr
ubs and tall
grasses around the perimeter of those screening walls to
add an extra layer of
buffering between those mechanical equipment and the single
-family homes
staff also recommends that building one as was identified
here substantially
comply with the elevations that were shown as well because
we did not receive
elevations for buildings two and three we recommend that
those be constructed of
masonry materials that are similar in design and
construction to building one
that we saw here so as to create a cohesive development
throughout this
office park we also recommend that any future phases be
uniform as it relates
to the frontage setbacks building materials and landscaping
used on Fort
Worth Drive to further that cohesive development as the
future phases come in
and at that this time I can answer any questions you might
have I have a
question on item three the masonry screening for the
mechanical equipment is
there a concern that a masonry wall may affect the
performance and efficiency of
those air conditioning equipment and maybe could look at
just doing shrubs
and grasses screening so that those can work efficiently
that's not something
that we looked at specifically we didn't get into the exact
design of that
screening around those I believe the applicant is here
though if you would
like to address some of those questions with him if if I
may interject if the
Commission does recommend consistent with staff's
recommendation as it relates
to the screen wall then perhaps we can revisit the
recommendation for the
screening mechanisms for the HVAC systems thank you
thank you Haley have one card on this item request to speak
says Lawrence
Holder and I think applicant maybe in Lee Allison speaking
in lieu of okay I'm
Lawrence Holder I'm gonna be speaking ten minutes for your
presentation if
you that much time perfect we appreciate the recommendation
by the engineering
development review division for approval however we do not
agree with the second
condition that the six-foot masonry screening won't be
constructed along the
common boundary line of the adjacent residential property
we are proposing a
garden style office that has highly compatible that is
highly compatible
with the residential appearances we are proposing an intens
ified type-c
buffer and my understanding whenever we were putting it
together that
intensifying that type-c buffer would be in lieu of that
wall if we don't have if
we have to put in that wall we don't want to intensify the
buffer so so we
were intensifying that buffer for the nuanced mitigation as
explained in the
ADP table and the tree canopy table and the comments on
that sheet as well the
existing zoning of the property is CMG as it was earlier
the adjacent properties
are zoned in our six which is a which is considered a
highly dense residential
zoning based on the future land use we were making sure
that's pointing north
for you based on the future land use plan this side is a
transitional area for
the whole area to become a CMG or equal in the future by
putting up a wall we
feel as though we're going to end up with the same
development stuff next to it
and then we're just going to end up with the wall that has
no value or any any
additional the proposed buildings must conform to the
building elevations
provided in the ADP if it gets approved and any additional
buildings will
require an ADP to be submitted and brought to the planning
and zoning
commission for future expansion so approving this ADP doesn
't affect the
future buildings if this were a typical convenience store
or retail center we
would we could understand and agree with the conditions for
a wall however given
the reasons I just expressed we did not feel that a wall
would be needed or add
any value now or in the future a couple questions for you
Commissioner Roselle
thank you for being here and presenting I have a question
for staff
clarification it was my understanding that because it's a
large-scale project
at its conclusion the southern buffer would have to be
eight feet and that
staff had reduced it to six feet can you clarify that it
was to be eight feet and
there's already been a concession to remove those two feet
yes the
requirement in the code is for an eight foot masonry
screening wall and staff
recommended six because of the smaller individual scale of
the building so over
the larger development would still trigger that eight foot
requirement and
so just to clarify thank you for the applicant you're
wanting a further
reduction of what would be codified for the southern border
from eight then we
did six and you want less is that correct correct okay
thank you
Commissioner back thank you chair following up on that last
part of
Commissioner Roselle's question you don't want a wall at
all or you don't
want a wall plus and the landscape barriers that what I
heard no we want to
intensify the landscape buffer added additional trees add
additional shrubs
make that landscape area really nice in lieu of the
retaining wall arm not
retained but in lieu of the wall again we're looking at
what is good now and in
the future by having a wall separating what is essentially
high residential and
eventually going to be CMG which will be commercial or
moving forward it's going
to be on uniform what kind of equipment are we talking
about there is just AC
units yes and these offices are four thousand eight hundred
and thirty five I
think square feet less than five thousand square foot so
these offices are
relatively bigger homes so these AC units even though it is
for office would
be basically to residential sized ish I don't I'm not the H
VAC guy but they're
going to be the same relative size as a residential unit so
we don't have to
screen from the residents a residence HVAC unit but we
understand screening
because this is a commercial we're adhering to the DDC code
for the
residents but in all reality the units aren't going to be
much bigger than a
residence's unit which could be placed five feet away from
another house so and
what was your consideration for a landscape barrier what
are we looking at
what were you suggesting we were intensifying it so we were
going to be
adding additional trees and shrubs we're looking at a 10
foot width on this it is
it is the type C buffer okay we weren't shrinking the size
of the type C buffer
it was going to be the DDC size which I believe is 10 feet
correct 15 15 15 feet
that's 15 on your site plan okay I should know that that's
okay we're here to help
just one last thing how will you identify these buildings
for the people
driving down Fort Worth where you can put your signs for
this for these
buildings to identify them somebody's driving down Fort
Worth see these
buildings are you by all means Lee pardon me Lee Allison
with Allison
engineering group I hope it's okay to speak I was on the
car looking at staff
they haven't legal happens anything so I guess we're good
4401 north 35 35 didn't
Texas the signage will be on the buildings where these are
going to be
places to where their destinations we're not going to need
signs like a Taco Bell
or restaurant or something would so there's no need for
that but that be on
that wall that faces for it would be on the wall facing
well I don't know to be
honest with that because again depends on who the tenant is
Kent keys office is
going to be one of those and I don't even know if he's
gonna have a sign on
it at all or be small monument sign or sign on the side of
the building but
he'll deal with sign for that in accordance with the code
well if people
are looking for you place and you wanted to look for your
place that's what I was
curious about is how you're gonna designate that there'll
be some of that
and I might add is Lance was trying to point out in order
to mitigate the
requirement for the wall around the perimeter we were
offering the standard
required landscape buffer plus additional plantings and we
were
offering up screening adjacent for the mechanical equipment
and we put the
mechanical equipment person personally on the side of the
buildings instead of
the back of the buildings to help attenuate that we're not
a big corner
commercial convenience store or supermarket or something
like that with
the big heavy mechanical equipment and so forth they
typically have if the
walls going to be required I mean certainly we appreciate
staff's efforts
to shorten the wall but we would not want to do the extra
landscaping and we
would ask that definitely the masonry screening wall
against the mechanical
equipment be pulled away don't have any problem with
vegetation and we didn't put
dimensions but obviously we'd want those screening to be
far enough away so that
the equipment will operate properly and we can access it
and maintain it
properly okay thank you so we're bargaining I guess thank
you and while
you're there Lee I have a question for you that I've got a
couple more on the
property to the east it's owned in our six and I think the
setback on in our
six is four feet off the property lines that correct I
think and we're looking
at the top of my head I'm sorry I think that's correct on
in our six and so to
the south they've got a 20-foot building line between the
property in the back of
the buildings the parking lots are on the north side of the
buildings and so I
understand maybe some of the concern for a screening wall
if there was parking on
the south side of buildings where there'd be traffic but
with the parking on the
north side of the buildings with the buildings being 20
feet off the property
line they're mostly like houses I mean I I can see your
point that some nice
landscaping and screening is I think appropriate I would
think it as this
comes before our Commission in the future on the east side
that does back up to
in our six I could see where a masonry screening wall would
would probably be
not only beneficial for residents but also for the
development itself but to
the to the south I can see where that would be more of a
commercial type feel
and having it open versus a masonry wall there because of
the way that you have
your site plan and the way the buildings are oriented so
beyond that the only
other concern you all have is on the screening on the mason
ry and you're fine
with all the other conditions and extra things that you all
have agreed to do
or that our staff has asked you're willing to do those yes
that is correct
and I appreciate your observation and that the part of the
building adjacent
to properties either on the south or the east will be back
yards not parking lots
and sure and mechanical access and things and that nature
from their cars
also after this phase any future phases we do have to come
back with an ADP for
this site and I think there'd be opportunities then and I
would assume and
not know that even if we put a building somewhere else if
it could create a need
for additional screening on the sites we already have that
could be imposed at
that time as well I think it's an assumption okay a couple
more questions
Commissioner Taylor thank you chair so first my first
question I think you just
answered by saying that you you would the mechanical
screening with masonry
wouldn't be a problem at all is that correct not if we don
't have a fence
right we're gonna put a fence up there then we'd like to
not have we can still
do vegetative screening but would not want to do masonry
screening animation
refinance right now I have another question I'm looking at
going back to
the preliminary plot excuse me the preliminary plot it
appears that I'm
trying to get my head around lot for or the common area the
detention pond all
right what happened is we started the ADP process before we
ever started
platting thinking we could do that then we were informed we
couldn't do an ADP
until we had an approved preliminary plat so we went and
prepared the
preliminary plat and typically areas that are going to be
maintained by all
the property owners together are labeled common areas so
when our ADP we labeled
lot number four because there was going to be four lots
there and in our formal
preliminary plat we got a common area so then we got it on
the consent agenda
tonight so we've got an approved preliminary plat so we can
now consider
an ADP so that's the circle we've been running in right and
actually my
question there wasn't so much on the label it's the shape
of the shape of
whatever that is lot for common area it seems to indicate
in the site plan the
detention pond will eventually go north does that stay
completely in the common
area or does that extend into what is labeled not for the
replanting also when
we add more lots or more phases right now and to be
technically correct we are
not proposing a detention pond we are strictly proposing a
water quality
treatment facility and that facility is not rectangular
even though the lot is
it's kind of moon-shaped but it fits within there and we
just planted that
lot big enough to accommodate that when we get around to
doing more and needing
to provide detention because we're not creating any more
runoff is coming off
today when we have to do detention will shape that
detention pond it could be
L shaped around that corner and we'll have a different
common area lot a
replanted common area lot that will accommodate that
particular facility and
so this would really what goes in on lot for will be a
temporary yes ice and
water treatment kind of still detained detaining water and
nobody likes to call
it temporary because who knows how long it'll be there but
our intention is
temporary until we can fully develop the balance of the
site okay and looking at
I was trying to measure distance because this this is about
500 or so feet wide
on the south end and the buffer was indicated as like 300
feet does that end
at the edge of lot three or does that continue on into
whatever you want to
call it lot floor common area I'd have to look at the
drawings my recollection is
it goes all the way across lot for the common area and we
would be doing that
anyway thank you they just so on the preliminary plot I
think it shows it
like 487 feet total depth and it so it's here it's
indicated as all the way back
so almost 500 feet well this has the concept or elements of
the concept in
existing facilities on there because of the ADP our
landscape buffer will go
back to the to the edge of the ADP which is to the limits
of the okay water
quality pond yeah that really that was my final point was
that this would also
buffer the pond right and mr. Beck to address the question
you brought up
during workshop these ponds are designed to drain out in 24
hours and because of
the vegetative nature and the natural treatments we're not
going to have an
odor problem or mosquito problem or anything of that great
thank you
Commissioner Ellis thank you chair thank you for being here
in presenting okay I
got my questions about the detention area answered I guess
now I'm I'm just
confused so we can move forward with a motion as to what we
are removing per
staff's approval and their recommended amendments to your
plan so if you could
well at the risk of telling you what I'd like you to do
well we hope that you
will remove the staff requirement for a masonry screening
wall if that goes
away all the other things would stay in place but okay if
the screening wall
stays in place we're asking that you remove our offer of
the intensified
landscaping and the masonry screening on the mechanical
units themselves okay so
if the masonry wall buffer is removed the six-foot wall
recommended
recommendation if that is removed then you'll leave the
mechanical
screening stays in place okay as well as the enhanced
landscape okay that's where
I was confused thank you okay
Commissioner Roselle thank you chair I'd like to go ahead
and make a motion I
move approval of this agenda item
you can try this again a clarification I move approval for
the agenda item ADP 1620
with the staff recommendations point one point two a three
four and five
excluding point two B
Commissioner Tadden a second and I'd also like to add that
normally I am a
fan of the masonry walls whenever we have conflicting uses
they kill sound
they block light prevent headlights make it hard for
somebody in a parking lot to
wander into somebody's yard that kind of stuff but in this
case your development
is to scale with the surrounding area and this this veget
ative buffer will
actually probably provide a better amenity to the house
immediately to the
south concrete wall would concrete wall would be right on
the property line and
you know they would they would go from having a view of a
field having a view
of concrete blocks so I do feel that a 15 foot buffer with
as you outlined red
buds and I just tore out about a dozen nandinas I'm not a
fan of nandina but
nandina is in boxwoods and so forth it would would provide
a better amenity to
the neighbor and the mechanical screening the screening
around the
mechanical also prevents noise and heat and that type of
problem and that you
know that might occur so for those reasons I I think the
vegetative buffer
is superior to the masonry screening okay I was going to
ask if you could do a
friendly amendment I like the masonry wall I also think
just from for the type
of project it is and then the size that the masonry
screening around the air
conditioning units is a is a non-necessity I think the
landscaping
there and where they're located is not necessary so I don't
know if you would
entertain that I would entertain that but it was my
understanding from Manal
that once this gets approved with they could come back and
if we recommend with
staff recommendations does it bind them to the masonry wall
around the mechanical
equipment what I was explaining was should the commission
choose to follow
staff's recommendation we would be willing to amend if the
masonry wall was
put in place the screening mechanism requirement for the HV
AC systems okay
then I would amend that vegetation be used for screening
for the mechanical
equipment also yes Commissioner Tyler I'm a real fan of the
the sound deadening
of the of the masonry so I don't know if I need to withdraw
my second legal or
so I do think you don't agree with it to keep the to keep
the stonewall there
so I don't know what draw your second is that is that the
correct procedure
yes you withdraw your second and just so I understand
Commissioner Taylor your
your it seems as though the the mechanical AC which is
residential size
is 30 feet plus off the boundary of the property and you're
still very concerned
about it carrying the noise carrying that 40 50 feet to the
neighbor to the
south I understand that they're a 4,000 square foot unit
commercial units might
have higher demand they might have more more doors opening
and closing might
have a bigger unit so that they can cool down more
effectively you know a six
foot wide three foot tall or two and a half foot tall
little brick wall right
there doesn't seem like much of an imposition to me and it
really might it
might have impact so that's I don't I don't see it as we're
making them put in
a 600 foot wall or something like that it's it's gonna be
something that's like
this big you know waist-high so I don't think it's worth
removing especially if
they're okay with it I'm gonna make a second first and a
second and open the
floor to discussion Commissioner Ellis yeah thank you chair
I have to echo
Commissioner Taylor's remarks I mean number one they're
agreeing to do it it
is for buffering sound in which we're not going to get with
vegetation and even
though I understand that it might be the size of a you know
household unit it's
going to be multiple of them and there will be higher
demand just because of
commercial building and what will be going on in there and
most likely the
degrees that one operates in their home it's going to be
much cooler in these
commercial buildings so I don't like that amendment okay
well as I recognize
Commissioner back forever thank you chair okay just so I'm
clear I've gotten
confused here what we're voting on is there'll be a
landscape buffer up to the
mechanicals then we put a then we stop it there put a wall
then go back to the
landscape or is there gonna are we talking about a wall the
full length of
the south end no okay then clarify my my my my motion was
as staff recommended
removing point to be which is the six foot opaque masonry
screening as well as
point three where it says the mechanical equipment must be
construct out of
masonry materials I amended that to include vegetation okay
so remove that
six-foot wall the whole length of the south side of the
property line correct
and okay and then a 15-foot buffer is what's there right
okay okay but that
hadn't been seconded yet has it it has it is okay sure
go on Haley to pull the site plan up shows here on the
south side this area
represents the 15-foot type C buffer that would be required
which if I
understand correctly is to remain with their added
vegetation and then these
squares here represent the proposed mechanical equipment
which would have
the masonry wall and vegetative screening around them
yes back to your question the elements of the last
comprise a 15-foot wide landscape microphone that extends
from that
extends from the southern property line 15 feet in and it
would have landscaping
live landscaping within that in the form of if I'm not
mistaken shrubs and five
trees six trees and 25 shrubs are required that being said
as it relates
to the HVA system so there are two separate requirements in
play but the
motion is then saying if I'm understand it correctly that
it only the 15-foot
landscape buffer would be required with the associated tree
plantings reflected
by the applicant for the entire length of the cell yeah as
it relates to this
request okay not now the wall we were talking about that
was also running along
the south border to not in between correct those two
buildings there correct
so staff's recommendation was that a masonry wall would be
required along
the southern property line six feet in height opposed to
the eight foot height
requirement and that the rectangles or the squares that H
aley points out on this
landscape plan would also or should also it is recommended
be screened with a
masonry cap around those so to speak those are the two
separate requirements
and then the motion that's come forward is simply requiring
or recommending that
the 15 foot wide landscape buffer remain no wall remove
okay no wall just so that
everyone is clear on the Commission since we're down a
member for this
session it will require affirmative vote of four in order
to pass yes this
motion
Commissioner Tyner I move we amend our the the motion to
reinstate staff's
recommendation of three in requiring the masonry screening
around the air
conditioning units
you asking for a friendly amendment when I was I was just
gonna I think he's
moved for an amendment so we have an official amendment we
need a second okay
Commissioner Roselle you're next I wasn't going to second
it I don't know if
Commissioner Ellis was playing on doing that I'm sure after
I would definitely
second that okay first and second to add the mechanical
screenings back in okay
Commissioner Roselle thank you chair is it applicable to
bring up the applicant
and just that it seems like there might be a commission
that split just to get
their understanding of how important the mechanical
screening is to this project
in terms of masonry verse vegetation seems to be the
sticking point here yes
we're basically okay with doing screening around the units
we can put a
wall there we can put shrubs there and whatever you would
like we just don't
want to do the wall along the buffer that's very helpful
thank you
oh with that I would like to go back to the original motion
that was placed
apologies to the chair and move that we approve this with
all five points minus
to be you know and I apologize for this because I was sort
of encouraged here
but since we have an official motion for amendment that's
going to take precedent
over the main motion we can't go back and modify the main
motion with that on
the table so since it's as is then we can vote on that or
you can entertain a
friendly amendment as Mr. Roselle has indicated so let me
get clear we can
vote on the motion that we have and if it fails then we
would come back and
make a new motion to go and add the screening back in is
that correct so if
we have a motion on the floor right now our motion that we
have to take up is
the one where staffs recommendations are put back in and he
had indicated that
he would be willing to put back in the second is it number
three but we'd still
like to leave out number to be and so if you're amenable to
that then we can
change the amended the motion for modification okay so
would it be easier
just to vote twice or I'm so I withdraw my motion then are
you amenable to
change your motion to that and Commissioner Ellis are you
an amendment
amenable to seconding that change if I could clarify what
we're okay what we're
taking up is the motion to amend the main motion and I'm
sorry this gets
complex for the audience but it's Robert's rules it we're
taking up the
motion to amend the main motion in order to put the staff
recommendations back in
mr. Roselle has indicated that he would go ahead and
entertain having three put
back in but would still like to see to be removed which is
in line with what
with what the developer has asked for so I asked if mr.
Taylor would be amenable
to a friendly modification of his motion to amend and
whether or not you would
agree to second that yes I would okay so now we have a
motion we can vote on
thank you I'm gonna call on Commissioner Roselle to restate
his amended motion so
everybody's clear and then we'll vote so my motion is to
approve agenda item
ADP 1620 with staff recommendations of point 1 point 2 a
point 3 point 4 and
point 5 with the specific exclusion of 4b 2b okay so all
but 2b okay and I'm
already got a second on that so any further discussion on
this item seeing
none I'll call for a vote on the board
motion carries 6 to 0 that will move us to our public
hearing section again our
item a has been moved to the end of our agenda so we will
move to item B at
this time I'm going to open the public hearing for fr 16 -
0 0 2 8 and call on
Haley for presentation
good evening so this is fr 16 - 0 0 2 8 it is a replat of
the revised Roberts
edition and this is a replat to break the original lot 3r 2
into lots 3r 2r 1
and 3r 2r 2 the property is located at the corner of Ector
and Emory Street
and the lots are intended for commercial development and I
can answer any
questions about the plot any questions for staff thank you
Commissioner back I move we approve of our 16 0 2 8 we've
opened the public
hearing on this item we cannot take a motion did you okay
that's okay this is
the public hearing item so we can't do the motion until the
public hearing is
closed so we just need to make a call to make sure anybody
else wants to speak on
this item yep sorry so Haley's finished her presentation no
questions for staff
this is a public hearing is there anyone else who would
like to speak on this
item at this time anyone that would like to speak on this
item seeing none I will
close the public hearing and I will open the floor for
discussion or emotion
Commissioner back I move we approve if our 16 0 2 8
Commissioner Sullivan a second a motion okay we have a
first and a second for
approval any discussion
seeing none I'll call for a vote on the board
motion carries six to zero I will move us to item C and I
will open the public
hearing for z 16 - 0 0 2 7 a and Colin Haley for
presentation
good evening again this is case z 1627 for the standard and
Hudson at Med Park
the request was to hold this public hearing and consider a
request for a
rezoning of approximately 20 acres from a regional center
commercial downtown
district to a regional center residential to district this
property is
located on the western portion of a larger tract that is
addressed as 2100
Mayhill Road and it is located at the end of Hudson Wood
and Somerset Drive
the adjoining property uses we have the Providence Place
apartments to the east
and the south and the Med Park station is a little bit
further to the south
currently the property is zoned RC CD the proposal would be
a rezoning to RC r2
the future land use for the area is regional mixed use
which is a
designation applied as you can see here primarily to
properties along
interchanges on I-35 and primary arterials it promotes
these as regional
destinations for a mixture of commercial and institutional
uses as well as
promoting a moderate to high density residential use so
staff's considerations
for this case the rezoning to RC r2 is consistent with the
surrounding zoning
pattern there is no immediate adjacency of RC r2
designation as you can see here
the RC r2 designation in this light pink is a rather spars
ely used but all of
these designations RC r1 RC r2 as well as the RCC districts
are all within the
same family of regional mixed use zoning designations so
staff considers that
compatible this request is a down zoning to a less
intensive district and the RC
r2 district could provide a transition between the
surrounding RC r1
properties which is the least intensive of this family of
districts to the most
intensive RCCD that's located along Mayhill so our CCD has
limitations
within it for multifamily development that requires they be
a part of a mixed
use development with ground floor commercial uses along any
collector or
arterial road as a part of this Hudson Wood Road would be
continued across this
property towards Mayhill and it is classified as a
collector so ground
floor commercial would be required with the rezoning to RC
r2 multifamily can be
developed without that mixed use component with the
approval of an SUP
and staff felt that given this substantial offset from May
hill Road of
this property those commercial uses required under RCCD may
not be supported
in this area along a primarily residential street as I
mentioned this
is a down zoning RC r2 is much less intensive in terms of
the scale of
development with a maximum density of 40 units per acre as
opposed to 100 under
the current zoning as well the maximum lot coverage is
decreased from 90% to
75 which increases the landscaping area required and it
limits the maximum
building height to 50 feet as opposed to 100 notice was
sent we received one
neutral response to that and staff is recommending approval
of this request
because of its compatibility with the surrounding land uses
and zoning as well
as its consistency with the future land use designation and
I can answer any
questions at this time questions for staff thank you again
this is a public
hearing anyone who would like to speak on this item please
come forward at this
time
please give your name and address my name is Brandon Han
cock I'm with the
applicant my address is 6440 North Central Expressway Suite
900 Dallas
Texas did you fill out a card for us I did okay put it over
there no problem
we'll make sure we've got okay I can do another one I've
got a hundred of them
I'm doing the best I can keep up with tonight apologize
sorry
thank you Chairman strange and committee members appreciate
it I also like to
thank the staff for their help the last few months we've
been trying to get this
to the public hearing for a long time and they've been
really helpful so I
appreciate that as staff presentation said we are looking
to zone this site to
RCR 2 you can see kind of an overall plan here we are
planning to do two
projects a family multifamily project 263 units as well as
a age-restricted
senior living 160 unit project the site size is just about
20 acres
and within that we have a six six point six acre senior
site and a ten point two
nine acre family multifamily site and then roughly three
acre detention site
some of the amenities we typically offer in our projects
and will offer here our
clubhouse with a cyber cafe computer lab a fitness facility
on both projects each
of these projects will have their own facilities within
that the family
project will have a pool both of them will have dog parks
and as you'll see
here we get to the site plan the seniors will have a
retention pond is kind of a
main driver amenity area one of the things we love about
this project is
it's a true transit oriented development we are right at
the Med Park station for
the DCTA a train so we will have a direct connection for
the family walkway
through the senior senior development to get to that train
station and the
seniors will have direct access off of the project to it we
also have bus
transit within a tenth of a mile of the project and we're
also located right
adjacent to the medical facilities at Denton regional here
's kind of the
general zoning around our project it's all regional it's
all mostly regional
RCC downtown or neighborhood or residential so currently we
're RCCD
which at our acreage we could do 2,000 units we can build
up to 100 feet we
can do max lot coverage of 90 90 percent we're proposing 4
23 units building
height is going to be less than 50 feet but that's what
would be allowed at our
max lot coverage is 75% here's a site plan you can see the
southern portion
that's where our connection to the a train station is we
don't have a fully
developed in this site plan but that'll be a nice plaza
connecting to stock
bridge which will connect to the a train and here on the
left sorry I don't have
a pointer but there will be a direct connection from Hudson
would for the
public and for the the the residents of our northern
property to get through get
to that connection to the a train station here are some of
the general
amenities in the area that we're hoping to play off of and
just to conclude
here's some projects we've done in Baton Rouge and other
cities in Texas that
kind of show what we've done our track record and typical
amenity areas and
unit finishes for our projects any questions thank you
questions for the
applicant thank you for your presentation again this is a
public
hearing anyone who would like to speak on this item please
come forward at this
time
seeing none I will close the public hearing and open the
floor for discussion
or emotion
Commissioner Beck thank you chair I move approval approval
of z160027 a
mr. Roselle second I have a first and a second for approval
any discussion
seeing none a call for a vote on the board
motion carries six to zero we'll move us to our agenda item
D and I will open
the public hearing for s 16 - 0008 a and call on Haley for
presentation
all right good evening again so this is case sts 16 0008
also from standard in
Hudson at Med Park this request is for the specific use
permit to allow
multifamily development on the 20 acres that we just saw in
the rezoning case so
I've reached through some of this same location at the end
of Hudson Wooded
Somerset Road the current zoning as you know is our CCD
with the request that
was just recommended for approval for our CR2 again this is
a regional mixed
use center as designated by the future land use plan and as
some of staff's
considerations as part of this SUP is that pending approval
of that rezoning
the applicant is proposing multifamily development that is
not a part of a
mixed-use development so the SUP would be the ultimate
approval for that
multifamily development this multifamily is consistent with
the future land use
designation of regional mixed use that includes the mixture
residential and
commercial uses specifically moderate to high density
residential this SUP does
comply with the criteria for approval of an SUP which are
all outlined in your
backup and just to go through their site plan really
quickly as we saw they have
two components the standard on the north side of Hudson
Wood and the Hudson which
is the age-restricted portion on the south side as well as
the approximately
three acre detention pond so looking specifically at the
northern development
the standard it is a 263 units total or is what is proposed
those are spread
across four buildings the buildings I've outlined in orange
here and then in blue
you can see the open space kind of courtyard areas as well
as a swimming pool
that they've proposed in between these buildings the
breakdown would be 43 one
bedroom units 135 two-bedroom and 85 three-bedroom all
buildings are proposed
to be three stories which approximately 34 feet in height
and this current site
plan has approximately 69% lot coverage and there would be
472 spaces those are
provided in keeping with the calculations required for
multifamily
development and those are provided along an interior
private street system as well
as a few spaces on Hudson Wood Drive and they're also
proposing bicycle parking
for this portion of the development on the south side we
have the independent
senior living or age-restricted multifamily component known
as the
Hudson it is two buildings outlined in orange there
approximately 160 units
112 one bedrooms 48 two bedrooms the buildings are proposed
at the same scale
three stories or approximately 34 feet tall and this
property does feature this
retention or detention pond and as a central feature of the
development and
they're providing 160 parking spaces for the senior living
portion and no bicycle
parking was shown on the site plan for this portion moving
into their
landscaping plan they are proposing landscape screening on
all four sides of
this larger three acre detention pond shown in green on the
north side they've
proposed landscaping that meets the street tree
requirements for the
internal street system as well as a type B buffer which is
required between
multifamily and single-family uses there are existing
single-family homes on
properties to both the north and the east on the south side
of similar
landscaping plan again that meets the street tree and
landscaping requirements
of the DDC elevations were not provided to staff at this
time however the
applicant did indicate their intent is to comply with
architectural requirements
of the DDC for multifamily again notification was sent we
received one
neutral response and staff is recommending approval of this
request
with a few conditions the first being that the developments
substantially
comply with the landscaping and site plans that we've shown
here the second
being that the proposed multifamily development meet or
exceed the
requirements for architectural requirements for multifamily
outlined in
the DDC we are proposing to limit the use of certain
materials EFAS and HDO
board to only 10% or as accent materials on these buildings
because for
multifamily developments staff recommends typically masonry
materials
to propose to provide a durability and you know longevity
of the product and
our third requirement would be that only monument or
building signage be used
along Hudson Wood Drive the applicant did not show any
signs on their plan but
we'd like to prohibit the use of pole signs or something
similar on this drive
since it is a residential collector Street and with that I
can answer any
questions you might have Commissioner Roselle thank you H
aley for the
presentation I have a question about the second point for
the staff
recommendation it says EIFS and HDO boards the didn't
development code says
wood clapping siding would be did siding stucco masonry HDO
board or other high
quality material it doesn't mention the IEFS what is of
those materials listed
in the development code would be classified under that
category so if it
is not specifically called out in the code however it is a
material that is
frequently requested to be used on buildings it's a stucco
like product
that doesn't have quite the durability of traditional stuc
co so since it is
traditionally requested with a lot of developments we felt
the need to call
out that that be limited because my understanding is it
does potentially
cause some durability problems when it's used on the lower
portions of
buildings and things like that over time so within the
recommendation they would
still be able to use wood clapboard siding would be did s
iding stucco is
that correct yes we're proposing that they meet or exceed
the other
requirements which I believe for multifamily requires 40% m
asonry and then
the other materials could be from the list that you've seen
there just so I
understand generally speaking they an individual could use
up to 60% HDO
materials according to code yes and you're wanting to limit
it to 10% can I
ask why such a drastic reduction in that ability given the
code provides 60%
it's something that staff recommends because of the long-
term durability of
the products we feel that traditional masonry as required
for up to 40% of
the buildings provides for better longevity of the product
over time and
who over the course of the the building would be
responsible for any durability
issues that would fall to the property owner for
maintenance of the property of
the buildings okay we'll speak more later any other
questions for staff thank
you I believe the applicant also has a presentation for
this okay I don't have
a card it's a public hearing so please come forward if you
get some of this you
know I see it now you've got a second on the same card
apologize
address again Brandon Hancock 6440 North Central Expressway
Suite 900 Dallas
Texas
flip through some of these we've already seen just real
quick on the site plan
some of the things I wanted to point out you can see it a
little bit better here
we have the walkway connecting to the a train station this
detention pond is
probably going to be if we can make it work a wet retention
so the cult
retention is a detention so a wet pond if you go to the
Hudson it's it's going
to be a retention pond the water feature I wanted to point
out I know that
Commissioner Beck you had a question about bicycle that was
a mistake by the
the architect we will have bike parking that's that's an
amenity on all our
projects from so that was a overlook on my part I didn't
catch that they missed
that so let me ask what are the bike mission back thank you
chair sorry what
are the bike amenities that you're providing in the
standard that you weren't
until now I'm gonna fit what I'm sorry what are the bike
amenities that you're
providing in the standard that you were up until now not
providing in the Hudson
I mean it hasn't been fully flushed out but it's either
gonna be interior a lot
of what we do now are interior bike storage rooms if we
have the space to do
it if not we'll have secure bike parking within the parking
areas behind the
fences behind the vehicle access gates we try to have a for
lack of a better
term a big room with part with with secure bike parking
indoors okay thank
you Mr. Hancock and I will now remove the ages label from
you that I did we do we
do have one ask on the staff recommendations until I saw
the staff
report we had not heard about the recommendation for no
more than 10% of
the HDO and the EIFS and maybe it's a clarification issue
we intend to
definitely do 40% masonry and in our case I know the the
code calls out
stucco masonry I'm sorry brick and stone is considered m
asonry as a company we
don't do stucco we've all done stucco projects in Texas
Louisiana Arizona
California they don't turn out well they leak they're
horrible so we do brick and
so for that 10% means 90% brick and if that's the case the
project just doesn't
work financially so we would propose meeting the code as
stated in 35 13 13
- a minimum 40% if the budget allows we obviously amp that
up I have some
examples here so you can see the development code versus
the staff
recommendation this is a project we built it's
approximately 40% and so it's
not an exact science because of the windows and the way it
's calculated with
the net openings but if you look it's typically the first
story would be all
brick and then you obviously have vertical accents or you
know however the
architect does it to achieve that 40% masonry here's
another project so we
would probably be doing these panelized Hardy systems on to
give it that kind of
that's a newer product it gives a kind of more of a modern
look you also have
this siding product so if you're not familiar Hardy is a
brand name but it's
a cement fiber cement board and it is durable it's got a
warranty it's a newer
product that's come out and been more widely used last 10
years in our opinion
it's vastly superior to stucco here's another project where
you'll see the
the brick veneer I'm sorry the brick base and then you see
the vertical
accents of brick and then the rest of it's the Hardy
product type paneling and
again so we think this is a quality product it gives you a
quality approach
it's long-lasting and it's really the industry standard
here's the elevations
are not fully developed these are conceptual renderings
that we've the
design approach we're going to take this has brick and I'm
sorry you can't zoom
in on it I don't think this has brick accents it has Hardy
paneling for the
standard and for the Hudson a more traditional look with
brick and again the
Hardy paneling to round it out again these are the pictures
you've already
seen of other projects we've built so that would be my
request that that we
for number two it's per code and I guess my other question
is just on the on the
number three on the signage I don't have an issue with that
I guess I just would
like maybe some clarification on you know sign shall be
designed in our only
monument and building signage I think there might be some
issues with
interpretation when we get down to it so if we can just say
no pole signs or
where are you after instead of so that would be my request
I call on staff to answer the question thank you as it
relates to the signage
pretty much when we're talking about sign you wanted
monuments of no pole
sign so we would acquiesce to that that's not an issue and
just as it
relates to the elevations I just wanted to point out that
there was little very
little clarity on what elevations would be provided so we
wanted to ensure that
we weren't compromising the style of the development but we
would be willing to
discuss the elevations proposed by the applicant
Commissioner Taylor thank you chair so I was just trying to
clarify I'm not very
familiar with these acronyms HDO are you saying Hardy is is
a type of HDO so I'm
sorry I don't have the acronym on top but I believe HDO is
meaning fiber
cement board if that's not the case then I would love to
talk about that but my
understanding is that is a another word for fiber cement
board Hardy is a brand
name Niche ha is another I mean it's okay yeah and I'm
familiar with Hardy
that but I'm not familiar with HD that's what I'm trying to
understand like that
so the if the restriction on number two was to restrict EIF
s to 10% or less and
not mention HDO would that still be acceptable or would
that be acceptable
to you I believe so that yeah yes what I mean that's that
can you what kind of
type of product is that if it's your information she's
right yeah I don't
think we'd use a sheening as an exterior product it's a st
ucco it's like a stucco
which you don't use it's styrofoam with concrete over the
top yeah so I would be
acceptable okay so you would want a first or would not
leave us I'm fine
with just the EIF is being 10% okay got you okay
commissioner Beck thank you
chair and I would support the use of a Hardy material I
worked with new housing
for 20 years and they used it and it is a very fine product
long-lasting durable
I think chairman strange would agreement I'm sure he's used
it in a lot of his
building so I don't have a problem with the HDO I was gonna
echo Commissioner
Roselle stole my thunder on my note for item 2 and so I
would definitely picked
up on that and I appreciate you coming forth so all the
other conditions are
fine except for on item 2 we just want to remove the EIF us
I mean excuse me
keep the EIF us and remove the HDO requirement and
everything else is fine
I think they were gonna clarify the number three would be
no pulse sign
instead of the way it's working okay I do now commissioner
Sullivan just to
clarify so that the HEO would to go back to the 40% limit
is that correct
maybe six sixty sixty percent oh sixty percent okay perfect
thank you sure
any other questions for the applicant
seen him thank you sir I appreciate the clarifications
again this is a public
hearing I have one card from Kevin Nelms not wishing to
speak in support of the
project anybody else to speak on this item it is a public
hearing seeing none
I will close the public hearing and open the floor for
discussion or a motion
Commissioner Taylor thank you chair I move approval with
some of staff
recommendations staff recommendation one as written staff
recommendation two
striking the word HDO board and changing staff
recommendation three to be no pull
signage shall be used along Hudson would drive sign shall
be in accordance with
the dimensional requirements in chapter 33 of code of ordin
ances Commissioner
Ellis I will second as stated okay we have a first and a
second for approval
with conditions any discussion seeing none will call for a
vote on board
motion carries six to zero that will move us to item II I
think since we've
been going for a while it is and I think our next item two
items we're going to
go for quite some time at 8 o 6 I'm going to call a recess
and we will take
a recess maximum of ten minutes
good evening and welcome back I'm going to call us back to
order at 820 the next
item we have on our agenda is item E and at this time I'm
going to open the
public hearing for z16 - 0 0 2 3 a and I will call on Julie
Wyatt for
presentation and just as a housekeeping item I've got
received one card from an
Eleanor Swan but it's not marked for which agenda item you
wish to speak for
so enough it's this one or the next one Eleanor Swan Ele
anor Swan you want to
speak on this item or the next item well I apologize you
don't want to be in
support but which item would it be this item okay
thank you sorry hold you up no that's all right good
evening I'm Julie Wyatt
senior planner with the city of Denton I'm presenting z 16
23 park 7 to you this
evening the location of the request is south of scripture
it is between normal
and Bryan it's about 1250 feet north of the UNT campus that
's about a five to
ten minute walk so just to orient you to the site also
wanted to let you know the
request involves three tracks one of the tracks the largest
and I'm indicating
it here has split zoning on it a portion of it is DCG and a
portion of its dr2
we'll go over that in a minute and then it includes two two
other tracks to the
south of that so the request before you is to consider a
rezoning for
approximately 1.39 acres from downtown residential to
district to D
downtown commercial general district the applicant has
indicated that they would
like to develop the site with multifamily development so so
well first
go over the the existing zoning pattern as well as the
existing land uses so
here in black is the subject property and here it's not
very clear but you can
see that here's the larger tract the the portion of it to
the north has the the
existing DCG zoning and then this is the subject property
that we're talking
about today the subject site is developed with a it was an
institutional
use that has been vacant for for a few years there's also
two single-family
homes on the subject property it is it is situated in a
four block area that's
north of the UNT campus this area has a primary zoning
designation of dr2 it's
developed with single-family uses with single-family dwell
ings that are used as
multifamily it's also developed with multifamily and some
commercial uses
within it so it's a mixed-use area to the north of the
subject property across
across from stricture scripture you have NRM U12 and NRM
you those areas are
developed with with multifamily dwellings with some single-
family
dwellings and some office uses to the south of the property
once once again
is the UNT campus and then I'm surrounding the area is is
an area of
established single-family traditional neighborhoods and
those all have an NR
3 zoning designation and our three does not permit multif
amily it doesn't permit
commercial development it is one of our lower density
zoning districts and then
and then there are two areas in in the vicinity of the
subject property that
have historic district overlays we have the West Oak
historic district and then
the Oak history historic district any properties within
those areas if they
wanted to make changes to the facade of those properties
would have to obtain a
certificate of appropriateness either through our historic
preservation officer
or through the historic Landmark Commission and then and
then the
properties in the hot pink those actually have historic
designations on
those individual properties so there's a lot of layers in
this area so yeah all
right so the future land use of the subject property is
neighborhood
university compatibility area these are areas within the
city that are affected
by their proximity to the universities so TWU and UNT in
this case it's UNT the
intent is to create compatible form and land uses for areas
that serve both
those established neighborhoods that we talked about and
the universities you
want to have a gradual transition in scale use and
character and you want to
encourage uses in close proximity to encourage a multimodal
transportation
pattern that that encourages walking and biking just to
stay on this map a little
bit so so here is the subject property this sort of light
hatch blue that's
the neighborhood university compatibility area to just to
the north of
that this is that area that has the NRMU and NRMU 12 zoning
and that has a future
land use designation of neighborhood mixed use it's kind of
the commercial to
neighborhood serving commercial and then you have the low
density residential and
that that is on those those traditional established single-
family neighborhoods
so the considerations that staff looked at when we analyzed
the request was
first we looked to sub chapter 3 of the Denton Development
Code and the criteria
for approval the first criteria being does it meet the
future land use
designation in this instance the density and commercial
development are something
that is desired near a university area and DCG it permits
both you know a
density that that is appropriate for this area as well as
some commercial uses
DCG it because of the commercial uses because of the mixed
use nature in the
density and permitted with it it fosters the walkability
the livability and the
vibrancy on a track that has been in disuse for several
years staff looked at
it as a potential catalyst for revitalization an area
between UNT and
those established neighborhoods and the existing zoning
pattern and those
physical barriers scripture Street those those that grid
Street pattern does
provide unnecessary transition between the request and
those single-family
neighborhoods that we want to protect so let's go back to
that zoning map so you
can say here's the request the adjacent zoning allows that
the development
pattern to transition to get to that lower density and the
lower scale of
development in the nr3 another criteria for approval is
adequate infrastructure
a thorough infrastructure needs assessment will be done at
platting and
at site plan and and prior to a site plan being approved or
plotting be our
a plat being approved any development would have to meet
the infrastructure
requirements within the city of Denton the proposed rez
oning includes the three
tracks the largest of which has a split zoning and so by by
rezoning the entire
track to the DCG's district it would consolidate the zoning
designation and
that would permit the entire subject property to develop to
develop under
consistent zoning regulations can resulting in a more
cohesive development
and let's look at that so the actual proposed development
that the applicant
has indicated would include a total of three acres which is
outlined in the
black part of it already has that DCG zoning this is
actually subject the
subject to the request and by by rezoning to the DCG and
consolidating
that zoning it would provide consistent development
patterns throughout there
I'm here some site fight photos the Denton Development Code
does have
provisions in it that do address scale and those will come
into play during the
site plan and the building permit portion if if the zoning
would be approved
that would come in during the site plan and one of those
things includes the
residential proximity slope which allows which requires
multifamily development
to step back development over over 40 feet in order to
maintain a human scale
on at the street level and reduce the visual impacts for
adjacent single-family
uses it's not it's not applicable to this project but there
are also
potentially minimum setbacks and buffers when you do have a
mix of uses in a
zoning district or in an area and one thing that the
neighborhood and that that
we heard during the neighborhood meetings were concerns
about traffic and
I know that's a really big issue in that area because of
the University so
typically when we think of traffic and we think of too many
cars on the roads
we think well build bigger roads right that's that's
typically how cities have
addressed that but there is a concept called neighbor
transportation efficient
development and studies have shown that when you broaden
your your scope when
you're talking about transportation we're talking about
traffic to not only
include the roadways and that signals and all the things
that we do in order
for cars to move through streets more efficiently but also
look at the land
uses within a city and and and look at how those affect the
amount of cars and
the amount of vehicle trips per day that that our citizens
have or undertake so
so so studies have shown that compact mixed-use development
near desired
destinations such as employment centers such as university
schools such as
transit oriented developments that they that they result in
fewer vehicle trips
because when you place people within a walkable distance
when you place them in
places that they can have other options for for for moving
about the city that
they would they would potentially choose those and reduce
the number of daily
trips conversely when you maintain lower densities you
actually end up spreading
things out and you sprawl the students in this case
throughout the city I'm
inducing them to to get in the car to drive so by by
getting the density near
places like UNT places that are the dot desire destination
actually takes the
cars off the road because they park their car and they
actually walk or bike
to the destination and then here is a map that that looks
at that so I just
so I just chose the middle parcel and so here's here's a
portion of the of the
request and then this is the quarter mile buffer so you can
see a quarter
mile is about you know a five to ten minute walk so you can
see that this area
is within that that buffer zone that would induce residents
to walk or bike
to that desired location to that University area public
notification was
sent out we have received within the 200 foot buffer one in
opposition and three
in favor so based upon the criteria for approval or their
consideration staff
does recommend approval of the request and I'll stand for
any questions and the
applicant is here questions for staff
thank you Julie hold on Commissioner Roselle thank you
chair thank you for
your presentation Julie can you just help me contextualize
the zoning it
seems like there's like a peninsula that pops up of DCG but
to the east and west
and maintains and in our three do you have any context that
you provide of why
that is even dr2 on the pencil it just seems like more
natural that that should
have all remained yellow in color instead of this little
pop-up of green do
you know why I don't understand whether there's that
inclusion of green to the
north there unlike the neighborhoods left and right this
was all zone during
the citywide rezoning in 2002 and and I don't have that
that knowledge as to why
they chose the zoning districts that they did this is a
mixed-use area so
there were in 2002 a lot of multifamily dwellings and some
commercial uses
within there so I don't know if it would have met you know
it wouldn't have been
necessarily that single-family those more intact
established neighborhoods
they were at that time there were already some multifamily
in there so I
don't know if that played a role in that just curious thing
sure
Commissioner Sullivan thank you Judy what exactly is a walk
able distance well
I know for me it's not going to be very far it probably
does depend on on the
person but you know in planning we tend to think of about a
15-minute walk is a
plate is you know a distance somebody would walk I mean it
would probably
depend on the destination but you know a five or ten minute
walk in from a
planning perspective is definitely a walkable distance
because when I look at
the University and where this is to say that it's a short
distance to UNT is
somewhat misleading is that it's on the very northern edge
of where the
chemistry building is when you go down to where the library
is it's more of a
20-minute walk according to Google map I don't know how
fast they walk to get
over to fast field or to go across to apache nobody's gonna
walk from these
apartments and so I was just curious what a walkable
distance is and how far
do you stray from that walkable distance before it becomes
a bussable distance or
something of that nature I don't know but let me add one
one thing to what I
said it also has to do with context so if if a place has
good sidewalks and
street trees and it's an interesting walk people will tend
to walk farther
than across maybe a sea of concrete so so it probably
depends on context and
and then and then you know how how difficult it is to park
at the
destination or how or you know if that person likes to walk
so but in general
in planning we tend to think of a 10 to 15 minute walk as
being something that's
walkable is this a time where any kind of a traffic study
would be done or is
that is that more of the site plan issue a full time to get
into the other
discussion a full traffic study would be done during clad
ding or
site plan and answer more about timing I know the applicant
has turned in some
preliminary numbers but really that would take we would
take a hard look at
that during the planning and site plan okay thank you sure
any other questions
for staff thank you Julie sure
have a lot of cards on this item first will be Lee Allison
as the applicant
, good evening commissioners I'm Paul
Levine from Park 7 461 Park Avenue South New York and thank
you for hearing our
application this evening with me I have a few members of
our team Mike Dallas
who's our JV partner and landowner on this Mike resides in
Austin we have Lee
Allison from Allison engineering from here in Denton and
Ron Butler from our
architectural firm Humphries and Partners out of Dallas we
'd like to pool
our time together if we made to take the 20 minutes
10 for each of you representing the applicant a total of 20
for everyone
representing the applicant okay great thank you first I'd
like to give you
just a brief background on Park 7 we're a national multif
amily developer we
primarily target the student market we also do retail that
is built in in
conjunction with the multifamily development where it's
appropriate over
the past 15 years we've we've developed owned and operated
over 8,000 units in
15 states around the country typically in a project like
this will have five
full-time staff on site as well as 10 part-time employees
to help with leasing
and so forth we certainly like Denton and you know what
really has drawn us
here is you know it's a great town for local food art you
've got young growing
population to two great universities that are growing
rapidly certainly a
need for for student housing within a walkable distance to
campus there's very
limited opportunities here at the time for that what we're
here for today is to
Julie mentioned we really would like to spread out the
zoning the density that
we have over a large area as opposed to concentrating it on
the 1.4 or 5 acre
DCG portion of the site we'd like to spread it out over a
larger footprint
and bring the the average height of the building down this
slide here basically
shows the the side in yellow and just to give you an idea
of proximity to the
right and red is the okay Hickory historic district and
West Oak historic
district in purple and the blue is the University outline
and if you look at
the university's master plan it has this site included in
its walking ring it's
within the 10 minute to the center of the academic core
which is located down
just below the sea there on the slide and what's what's
really good about this
site is that is certainly going to reduce the need the
demand for students
to come from outlying areas you know two miles away from
campus where they're
either driving and parking in these neighborhoods or are
taking a shuttle
bus and I'll certainly reduce the pressure on the
conversion of some
single-family homes in these areas to multifamily student
rentals to give you
just a quick few slides on some sample projects we've done
around the country
this is an LSU it's a six-story project 277 units rat
parking garage the next
one is in Columbia South Carolina same thing six stories 22
7 units the
materials here mix stucco fiber cement panels masonry and
some metal panels
next is in Lubbock six-story project and also walking
distance to campus here we
have a lot of masonry and stucco here are a few photos of
interiors kitchen
area with coffee bar game room ping-pong and pool there's a
movie theater this is
an internal courtyard that's fully enclosed for act or
activities there's
another lounge area and this is the many area that we put
on top of the parking
garage with a fitness center that overlooks this one this
is a property
that we have under construction in Waco at Baylor this is a
five-story
development and this is a rendering I brought to our first
meeting community
meeting back in September to get some input from the
community on you know
materials massing and so forth and after taking what we
heard back to the
architect we came up with the following plan here on this
next slide and what
we were able to do is incorporate some of the things we
heard from the
community which was to get the massing down we lowered the
to four stories
everything along the scripture and normal Street and at the
corner of Brian
and the height of that's about 46 feet to the peak and we
were able to bring in
some elements working with Roman as well here at the city
some of the elements
that we found in the buildings in the neighborhood mostly m
asonry lap siding
and some of the the trim work that you see there another
thing we heard from
the community was to try and push it back off the street so
what we've done
here is created large courtyard areas particularly off of
scripture those go
as deep as 60 feet from the back of the curb and they're 40
to 60 feet wide along
normal they go as deep as 35 feet and they're about 40 feet
wide there as well
see feel that you know the the revisions we've made here
certainly have have
helped with with the issue of massing at the site to put it
in context with you
know some of the other multifamily properties in the area
we've got City
Park which is diagonally across the site and to the peak of
their roof is roughly
varies from 40 feet to gets up as high as probably 55 feet
as you go down to
ponders you start going down the hill from the sidewalk so
we're talking
comparable heights and fry Street even though it's a four-
story building is 57
feet tall our fifth story would be 56 just one foot under
that we are proposing
however on top of the garage which you can see on this
slide that's the the
parking garage the center which is completely wrapped by
units so it will
not be seen from the street but we're proposing to put a
small amenity area on
top of that parking garage which would not be be able to be
seen from the
street like I showed you in that other rendering where a
small fitness center
that would look over a swimming pool. I'd like to point out
the sustainable design
practice we use we put you know we use recycled materials
you know the hardening
board has a lot of recycled wood fiber and so forth we do
light colored roofs
for less solar heat water source heat pumps low emitting em
itting paint
energy star appliances low flow fixtures LED lighting
bicycle parking
electrical vehicle charging stations inside the parking
garage and we do
sustainable landscape where we'll capture the rainwater and
recycle it for
irrigation. These are just the list of items that we feel
that this project is
bringing to the area as I've covered most of these already
have already spoken
I'll just leave those up there and the next thing I want to
talk about is when
we you know we're invested in this property already we own
it with with our
partner and we we needed to know what alternative plans
were in the event that
rezoning the property was not successful so we had a mass
ing study done to know
what is permitted under the current zoning and this is what
adheres to
residential proximity slopes and all the things that govern
the massing you know
this is while it's it's you know it's economically feasible
we certainly don't
feel that this is the best design for the neighborhood or
for us either and
we're hoping that we can through what we've incorporated
into our initial
designs and reducing the massing and landscape areas that
we're able to do
you know move forward with the plan that we have in front
of you today. This is a
slide that that just has that shows what's what's around
the areas I talked
about the different heights. Am I at ten minutes or is that
okay I'll just wrap
this up that these are properties that are located in
proximity you see you
Center Fry Street again and City Park you know both those
are heights of up to
57 feet. Here is that a slide that just shows the cross
section of why you
Center and our proposed project at the fifth story level
are the same height
that has to do with a large height in the retail section.
Here's a slide from
Scripture Street driving towards Bryan you see on the right
of City Park on the
left would be on the left-hand side of the screen is what
the four and five
story building would look like it's it's it's fairly
covered by by an existing
tree at the corner there however the slide on the right is
what the ten story
massing would look like. This slide just as far as the the
issue of zoning as you
move away from UNT we've got DCG and then DR2 and then DCG
again and then MRMU
which allows up to 65 feet. We're proposing to offer an
overlay that would
limit the height of our building the maximum height to 70
less than 70 feet so
that was more even out the the zoning heights as you move
away from UNT. At
this point I'll bring up Lee to talk about the neighborhood
process.
For your presentation that you've got a good product here
and it's something we
can use in Denton. I'm having a hard time with it in this
location for a variety
of reasons but an overlay of 70 feet in in this particular
area is unacceptable
to me. This is a well-established neighborhood classic
homes homeowners
live in it have taken care of it where just about any other
place around UNT
this product would work very well around TW and other parts
of the city but as
well as you've made it look and again I'm not picking on
you here but this
this thing is still huge by comparison to what's in the
neighborhood and its
footprint is big to me it just it doesn't seem compatible
with the
neighborhood it's in. We're dealing with a product that's S
ROs or we're dealing
with a transient student population as opposed to a more
stable family
population. The scale conflicts with the neighborhood and
violates concept I
think of gradual transition because this thing is just boom
set in there and it
sets apart from other things so you commented that the
student population
North Texas is growing and requires student housing but it
's really not up
to the city to provide the student housing and I'm not sure
it seems like
every time we've had this kind of development here not sure
but we had one
other one over and one the historic district nobody from UN
T has ever come
to support the notion for these kind of developments there
in fact they just
broke ground recently I think near Kerr Hall which is near
Eagle for 500 unit
apartments so it sounds like they're trying to answer their
problem but this
development is nice as it is in a lot of ways and it would
be again acceptable
anywhere else but in this this this older area that's
really kind of
reflective of our heritage over the last hundred years it's
just it would in my
opinion create a slippery slope situation where more of
these type of
developments would come in and then we would see this
neighborhood start to
diminish so I are you open to an overlay district in fact
we have something in our
development code that does suggest a mixed neighborhood
residential overlay
that I would like to see shorter heights on something no
more than three stories
something that had less density greater setbacks and
everything this gives you a
chance to build a product that we can use again I would
rather see a product
that accommodates families as opposed to students but it
could accommodate both
of them and at the same time helps maintain the character
of that
neighborhood so what are your thoughts on something along
those lines well
something certainly at the three-story level in terms of
density with their
parking requirements that won't work in terms of economic
feasibility I mean
that's really the issue here is it wouldn't be worth
building for you okay
how are you not gaining by building something a little bit
smaller scale
than what you're proposing here it's not only can you not
get a bank to finance
it you can't get the investors to invest in it it's the the
cost to build the
project and the income you take in it's all based on how
many units are in the
project right so fixed costs are still the same your
architects all your
studies your engineers I've been doing this for a long time
and unfortunately
at a three-story project it wouldn't be feasible I know
that well again I was
like answers for you but I don't know being honest no I
appreciate that my
main concern here and I'm sure you and the other developers
are aware that the
neighborhood is really opposed to this project for
understandable reasons this
is again a settled established neighborhood and this kind
of
development we need dense right I mean I guess it's similar
to you know a
single-family developers not gonna build a house if he's
gonna lose money
doing that it's no different no no I agree that's not going
to give us what
we need we do need low-income housing more affordable
housing I should say
right but again it there are just places like developments
are yours in my opinion
respectfully or just off-limits and the north side of the
UNT campus is that
area it's frustrating to me to see these type developments
come in and I can
understand the appeal of it because of the the charm that
area has but have
y'all look seriously at any other area the West Side would
be appropriate for
this type of development all along Eagle on the south side
yeah sure we have
looked around and we were not able to locate a site and a
lot of it has to do
with the economics too of trying to acquire an existing
running property
there are not sellers over there that are willing to not at
prices where you
can still build a project I mean there you're basically
having to buy their
cash flow stream and it doesn't work unless you're talking
about a
significant change in density anyway thank you yeah any
other questions I can
answer any other questions
mr. Solomon going back to the idea of walkability and you
've got the eight
eight-foot sidewalks around your property yes how's that
going to be
impacted whatever they then walk on to didn't city of didn
't maintain sidewalks
that are not eight foot that are not nice and new and clean
and level and
and what have you is that you think that's going to
encourage or discourage
walkers from their 20 minutes down to the library I'm going
to be an
improvement as to what's there as as properties develop in
the future it'll
be their responsibility to pick it up from there just like
any other I do
think that certainly creating a hardscape around the
perimeter of the
property with better lighting and you're just going to have
a lot more foot
traffic that's going to make more vibrant area safer area
you know I sit
there now and I watch this flows the kids coming from
further away from a
cross-strait so they're going to walk for sure it's a lot
easier to walk and
it is to try and park your car you know even shuttles where
they drop me off
we'll walk this five minutes the edge of the academic core
and then you can take
you know the shuttle from there if you want to go all the
way to the other side
of campus have y'all inquired with North Texas as far as
buses running or DCT 8
buses running from the apartment complex to the campus we
haven't talked about a
direct route but that we always do when we get closer to
opening okay thank you
yeah Commissioner Taylor thank you chair could you go back
to the the site
rendering I'm just trying to wrap my head around what what
dimensional things
create this look here so that's you said that's that's an
eight foot sidewalk
there so then you so it's a like an eight foot sidewalk and
about is that
like a 20-foot side yard front yard yeah it varies in size
but like the one like
the the shortest distance not not understand you have for
those pavilion
back in the curves by 20 feet back
this is an architectural rendering but having looked at the
here's name and
address please Lee Allison with Allison engineering group 4
401 North I 35 Denton
Texas basically the code requires an eight foot sidewalk on
Scripture but
knowing the pedestrian interest around here we've proposed
eight foot sidewalks
all the way around the parkway in this section behind the
curb is about eleven
and a half feet and in working with the architect we've put
the buildings ten
feet behind the property line even though it's not there's
no setback
requirement here but we've put it ten feet back so we're
about to the closest
part of the building about 20 feet from the back of curb to
the building long
answer I hope that gave it yes so curb curb to building
approximately 20 feet
in this is the closest portion of the building yes as Paul
mentioned in these
deep recesses maybe as much as 60 feet from the curb to the
and then this this
is 46 foot top of the edge at front edge of the building
there and that great
Ron 46 feet for the front facade of the building so does
that does that comply
so if you're 10 feet off the property line and you have
that 35 degree slope
from 40 would that wouldn't that be below 46 feet wouldn't
you be looking at
like a 43 or 44 foot max at 10 feet off the property line
across from a house
if there's a house across the street from there we're very
close to it but
this has been set up so where there are houses we have met
the residential
proximity slopes so basically you'll push back the building
yes across from
the last and basically so that your building is underneath
that line right
and you and you did list you said a front front edge 50 46
feet and top of
the building 56 feet yeah then you said you would need you
would be comfortable
with a 70 foot elevation that's 14 feet higher than your
let me explain that see
this is the parking garage and just you know mad basically
a 10,000 square foot
rectangle would sit on top of there
yeah right up we were going to locate it right about here
you'd have a rectangle
that would sit up here that would have a fitness center in
it that would overlook
the swimming pool that would be in the top of the parking
garage so that's the
difference okay so that would be an extra 12 or something
feet above the
fifth floor right and what we're saying here is that when
you from a sight line
from the street view the front portions of the building
because it's so set so
far back you won't be able to see that part of the building
from the ground
right yeah and so now looking at this the view you kind of
I know this site
plans are non-binding we're not really evaluating site
plans but just to get an
idea of scale here it looks like you've got 40 units of
floor is that so you'd
be looking at what is that 250 229 okay and I'm assuming
that's that's your
whatever profit point that's the that's the market point
you need to reach that's
when we talk about restricting the height you lose units
can't can't make it
work at 130 units you need your 200 or whatever it is so
yeah I think those were
all the dimensional things like I said I'm just trying to
get my head around
what all what else is going to hear thank you another
question Commissioner
Roseau thank you chair thank you for the presentation yeah
I just wanted to maybe
clarify for myself as well as maybe for the edification for
anyone else can you
show us the 10-story option that you had
it's your understanding that this option more or less
presented here if our
Commission tonight does not approve the rezoning this
project is economically
feasible and able to be built by right correct and so what
you're asking is
instead of building this to disperse the density that this
provides right over
the course of larger property that's right so I feel
compelled to think back
over a recent case that some of the commissioners held here
as well and in
Buc-Ease I'm not sure if you're familiar with Buc-Ease case
but it was a similar
situation in which an applicant was asking for something
and if denied they
could build whatever they know we've got a commissioner
that's been in another
meeting who's gonna rejoin us Commissioner Hesbeth welcome
back okay
Mr. Roseau please continue anyways to shorten the story we
had an opportunity
to ask Buc-Ease to do certain things because they were
asking for something I
feel like this is a very similar situation in which the
Commission has an
opportunity to think through an option that's less intrus
ive than what y'all
can build by right and what my concern is initially and I
obviously I'm gonna
listen to the public and and process through this but my
concern is is that if
we deny the agenda item tonight that although that would be
a win per se for
the neighbors to deny something it might be ultimately a
loss if they have a
hundred foot building in their backyard and so it might be
worth considering for
individuals in the audience as well as this Commission to
think through the two
options on the table is potentially a 70 foot dispersed
building or or this which
to me I call monstrosity and so that's something to be
thoughtful of right
and I have one more thing I just want to add for the record
that we obviously
can't tie to a site plan when we're talking about the
zoning so since he's
offering to do it at a lower level than what the zoning
that zoning change would
allow we would still have to entertain something similar to
it the mixed use
residential district that Commissioner Beck had indicated
and that's under 35
point five point two four of the didn't development code
and typically that's for
in our MU properties that are your residential properties
like in our two
or in our one but in this case the wording of that
particular section of
our ordinances will allow us to do it in this case so you
have that available to
you where we could do a mix use overlay in this case over
the zoning layer in
order to top it out at 70 feet or whatever height that you
wanted to be
thank you you want to respond one more point but one years
on as far as you
know that additional height that I think might be you know
concerning a way to
restrict that would be you know to say you know not more
than 15% of the
footprint could be above you know the whatever our fifth
floor is 57 feet or
60 feet let's say would not be above it so it's clearly the
intent is for that
amenity area and not from for some larger area at that
height we can do that as
well so the last thing I wanted to say at this point was it
's been brought up a
couple times and I believe two weeks goes brought up in my
absence about it's
not the city's responsibility to provide housing for the
University of North
Texas which I agree with however every time there's a
housing need fulfilled by
the University of North Texas the city didn't receive no
taxes for that and so
in terms of tax revenue and a basis for that it's not
necessarily not that it's
our obligation as a city to provide housing for North Texas
however providing
housing period is taxes that you know Texas will not give
us when they build a
dorm right and I think that and I think that's on a later
slide but the increase
in the assessed value I think it's 30 fold it's something
like 1.3 million up
to 33 million in terms of the tax would be generated
property tax right yeah
thank you Commissioner Beck thank you chair just a quick
response to
Commissioner Roselle's statement about a loss of property
tax and that's true but
it's not like it would be revenue void with extra students
coming in they buy
products they go to restaurants and movies and stuff like
that so we still
gain some revenue from that in relationship to our legal
attorney here
Jennifer Curtis pointing out that we do have more than the
option of approving
this as is or denying it as is we can approve this project
with an amendment
that would bring in this mixed-use residential overlay and
substantially
reduce the footprint here and I understand the concern
about it being
profitable and all that and this area does need to be
cleaned up okay there's
some there's some messy areas in there but again I think
overriding all this is
we have to keep in mind the character of the neighborhood
that's very important
to that that weighs more heavily than a lot of the other
things that are of
economic value to you and I think if we can create an
overlay district that will
allow you to build something that will fulfill the needs of
the student
population creating low-income housing and again keep this
neighborhood in a
state that it's been for virtually a hundred years that
that's a win-win
situation it's not a win-win situation if if you're
building something any
anything above five stories seven stories ten stories
because eventually
it's going to diminish the value the property around there
that'll sell off
more these type of developments will come in and then we've
lost exactly what
we want to preserve here an important part of Denton's
heritage right right I
think Lee's going to continue the presentation and how much
time does Lee
have we've had a lot of questions and I don't know how much
he has an additional
ten minutes ten minutes ten minutes okay I was wondering
how much time we had
left I do want to back up to this particular slide we
prepared this as a
result of miss Ellis's question last session regarding the
changes in
densities etc and how things get zoned the way they do and
and why things
change and in a very small city you might like saying where
I'm from you
might expect an umbrella type pattern where you got high
density in the middle
and things thin out as you go away as you get larger cities
you're going to
have different use areas and as a result you'll have
changes and we cut this
section right through our site with the University of North
Texas on the left it
is not subject to zoning restrictions so there are no
height limits it steps down
to a DCG which has a hundred foot limit then it steps down
to a dr2 that has a
45 foot limit then it steps back up for another service
area that has a DCG with
a hundred foot limit which is part of our site and then it
has a cross from
our site there's both NRMU which is a 65 foot limit and NRM
U 12 which has a 40
foot limit and behind that is the NR3 that has a 40 foot
limit as well as the
NRMU 12 the crossed hatch area where I proposed site is we
're looking at a 70
foot height maximum but that includes the recreation area
that mr. Taylor
discussed earlier down from that we got the five stories
set in some and then out
in the immediate fronts where it four stories or about 45
feet which is very
comparable to the dr2 and the NRMU 12 that are adjacent to
it see if I'm going
the right next direction October 5th we had an initial
neighborhood meeting this
was before well we got our application into the city before
official meetings
with the city we brought the project from Waco to use as a
talking point to
get neighborhood comments and feedback after that we
contacted Roman McAllen
and Ron and I the architect made a walk around the area to
see what we could
find in the way of themes what's going on there pretty ec
lectic there are
tree-lined streets everywhere except on our current site so
we're looking at
getting ridding some of the driveways and adding trees
there we're not going to
put more dumpsters on the streets like there and we're not
going to add
overhead electric lines we think we've made it attractive
and tried to find
ways to architecturally be respectful of and even blend and
work with the
community after that we came back for another neighborhood
meeting on December
7th I showed what we had come up with after the meeting
with them some people
were pleased some were just glad we did what we did but
like a little different
some people still didn't like it at all to be honest
neighborhood concerns
proximity to historical districts were 660 feet from the
closest one and the
code puts in protections against those such as the
residential proximity slopes
insufficient parking we're meeting the code and right now
there's a lot of
people walking from even further north than where we are on
the existing city
sidewalks because they're parking way out there to try and
find a place to get
to campus so there's a lot of walking going on enforcement
of parking we're
having an on-site wrapped garage that doesn't help
enforcement of parking
that's an issue out there it's going to be an issue after
this complex is there
we're not going to meet that much of the university's needs
building height we're
proposing less than code and we're certainly willing to
have an overlay
restriction to help make sure that limit is enforced even
after the zoning is
approved if we're so fortunate parking block solid waste we
're going to have
on-site facilities we're not going to add to that
neighborhoods concerned about
traffic we're paying our impact fees we did accomplish a
traffic impact analysis
preliminary traffic counts I'll just mention more in a
minute future
improvements to scripture the neighborhood asked about that
and
there's not any in the city's capital improvements program
at this time it is
classified as a commercial collector dust and noise
building permit process
we're not any different than any other construction
capacity of existing
infrastructure it appears to be okay but we'll put a
detailed analysis together
as we proceed with site planning and planning impact upon
surrounding
businesses we think as those on Fry Street have have done
better as a
result of the increased density there we think with these
housing that'll help
the businesses in the area to some degree demand for
housing still
extraordinarily high and we're not really going to address
a large part of
UNT's demand for housing some of the ways we think it helps
work together
with the communities that are dresses some of the demand
for student housing
keeps it off on the tax rolls rather than off property
value around 33 million
reduces the need for student occupied home rentals I did an
analysis based on
UNT's projection of 2025 having a population of 45,000
students their
master plan says they're going to house 9,600 and 83 53 of
those students
basically that leaves 35,000 students unhoused if we assume
that 60% of those
will live in the area and the other 40% will commute that's
21,200 beds but
that's still generating 28,000 trips per day and commuters
coming into the area
to attend UNT if that entire area was owned in our four and
all the students
rented houses it would require 1,325 acres of NR for to
accommodate those
students I think that helps explain why there's the high
pressure the high
demand for student rentals in that area that seemed like a
fast ten minutes I
'm sorry that's I want to honor that okay you know if it was
all dr2 with the
two-story type apartments it would take 440 acres to
accommodate those same
number of students DCG with 150 units per acre which is
what we're asking for it
would take 88 acres what we're proposing in our 620 beds it
would take about 120
acres to accommodate all those and those are just for
perspective you got to look
at other things like what's already out there and and how
it's going to change
around but there would be some overlap but we are trying to
meet some of the
university needs there reduces the number of commuters yeah
we're gonna
take our 28,000 down to 27,600 you know it's not gonna make
a huge difference
we're not asking for any public assistance there's some
crime issues
around the building right now with vagrants entitlement
allows for 100
foot we're looking at 68 parking meeting code wrapped
garage etc we looked at
the existing don't zoning the city's only documents tell us
this is a good
place to put this facility we looked at the Denton plan
2030 it says that that's
what's supposed to be going here we looked at the Denton
development code and
we looked at the residential setbacks and other things to
see what we can put
in there we looked at the didn't criteria manuals we're
exceeding some of
the requirements as far as some of the setbacks we've
looked at historical
districts and landmarks and stayed a decent distance away
from those this the
zoning allows for all that we went through the UNT master
plan in detail to
see how we would work together with them in that area and I
agree the city of
Denton is not responsible to provide housing for UNT
students on the other
hand the UNT students are there UNT is the gorilla in the
room and that demand
for for housing is going to be there the demand for parking
and the demand for
transportation it's all going to be there regardless the
question is are
they going to live there are they going to commute there
are they going to live
in houses over 500 acres or more they're going to live in
apartments over 50 to
100 acres or 200 acres and that's the kind of planning that
the city has to
grapple with I just get to come up here and challenge you
with it all that's a
little easier we did do the TIA as far as running the
numbers there's not any
curves in the transportation of Institute of Transportation
Engineers
manual so we went out and found some independent studies
that had been done
on apartments we show for our side is we're proposing it we
do not trigger the
requirements for a TIA but we're still going to do one
anyway when we get into
the planning process we presented that report to the city
and the staff went
out and ran some traffic council an existing apartment
complex of student
housing and found that our studies were in line with what
they're finding in
the in the local areas we found a number of studies that
show if you're within
walking distance of a university that student housing
typically parks about
70% of the number of bedrooms if you're within public
transportation is within
about 80% 85 and as you get away from all of that you
probably needing to be
on a one-to-one we're still following the code and this
will be quoted parked
essentially at the one-to-one this shows the surrounding
area and what the uses
are by the type we've got businesses we got houses in
yellow that have been
converted to businesses we've got existing apartments in
the area that may
explain why the type of zoning that's in this area mr. Rose
lle is and how it got
there blue houses are single-family we did find one house
we say it's owner
occupied and that's because we saw that they have a homest
ead exemption and a
vacant lot that's the real ten minutes all right we're out
of here appreciate
it thank you very much some questions for you yes
Commissioner back here in response to your statement about
expectation student
population growth I understand that I'm not one to you know
put a roadblock up
for growth but the fact that the expectation is there doesn
't mean we
have to meet it at the highest level we control growth and
we should control
growth we won't set the city of Denton to grow but we want
to go to steady rate
and we wanted to grow in ways that negatively impact
important areas like
this neighborhood north of UNT you mentioned that city
future land use map
and everything indicate this was a good place to build but
I would just bring up
the point that maybe we should discuss in more detail that
this attraction to
this area is partly due to the fact that this DCG
designation along Scripture was
part of some city planning back in part of city back in
2002 and for the life of
me I can't understand why they thought DCG would be
appropriate there I don't
think everybody fully understood what that entailed now
Commissioner Taylor and
I talked briefly he thinks he understands why that was put
there and
I'd be glad for him to share that but that was probably a
mistake and that's
maybe neither here there but it maybe is something that we
need to revisit
depending on where this goes and why they never considered
to put it back to
DR - I don't know but that's part of the reason why this
particular area has a
certain pill for you because you've got a foothold in there
with that DCG so
again you guys build a great product I'm always pleased
when you come up and
present your stuff and you've done a lot of great things
around the city but the
bottom line it just there's areas where you should build
this and there's areas
where you shouldn't and this is just one of them in my
opinion it should
I understand what you're saying and that's why you're there
and I'm here
and I'd also suggest related to that one of the issues in
finding sites is
concrete city is zone DR - who wants to go and redevelop
concrete city from two
story apartments to higher density when the density zoning
is not there yet so
well it's possible the Commission may be more receptive to
rezoning that area to
the city so
thank you any other questions for the applicant
all right Commissioner Husbeth well I have another are
there more cards to
speak we haven't started yet then I'm gonna I'm gonna take
notes and then I
ask you back up but and I'll if I may thank you chair
continue I think when I
listen to the citizens speak and I take in your perspective
really what I have
to reconcile and what I'm gonna ask you afterwards is this
how do you how are
you if you counterbalance the neighborhood wants certain
things that
don't fit your business plan right so we have there's there
's an impasse how do
you how do I know how to process that but I want to I'm
gonna ask you how you
process that how do you get to where you where you are I
don't think I think
there's some real challenges with that on the edge of a
transit transitional
district and so I'll just I'm just giving you time to think
as they speak I
personally have to weigh their concerns and yours and the
rights but I and I'll
tell you I'm biased with respect to the the narrative and
that I will ask you
about the if then if this than that that you that's in your
narrative I've never
seen that before and I don't I mean it rubs me different
and so I'll ask you
about that but I want to I want to hear what the citizens
in the neighborhood
have to say but but I wanted to give you a head start so
that I'm not not
blindside we'll be here tonight we're not going away sure
some of that I'll
have to refer to Paul but sure we'll get your questions and
appreciate it
thank you sir anything else and see none thank you I thank
you and this is a
public hearing I've got a number of cards requesting to
speak first of which
is Mary Anderson at 924 West Oak if you'll state your name
address and
thank you all for being here again and your cards marked in
opposition you know
yes Mary Anderson as you said 924 West Oak there are so
many things wrong with
this I'm not sure where to start what is D CG zoning is
that multifamily this is
an SRO it is not a multifamily operation so that's already
wrong the
traffic is horrible the roads are way too small to handle
all these units and
I hear words but no data I don't see real hard references
about parking well
the cars got to get there and they got to get out this
overlays a very close to
Oak Street which nobody bothers to show that Denton
Regional or whatever it's
currently called now no Denton Presby is on the ambulance
route while you guys
were talking on something else I was outside hearing six
fire trucks go up
Oak Street texting my husband is everything there no they
're going past
they're gonna roll right past there how are the ambulances
and fire trucks gonna
get to any of these buildings this is a real safety issue
the roads on Oak
Hickory and scripture have you been down them lately oh my
gosh I don't want to
start it's horrible what are 229 units they are not
apartments they are not
family places they are transient places where eventually
homeless they live and
I hope we find places for them to live I don't know what is
about anybody having
a community meeting I never got notice of a community
meeting when was this
nobody sent it around to the community who was this and
walking around those
none of those ever got to me I'd be there telling you this
is kind of crazy
and finally I looked at what the applicant has here or
close to finally
it says that the applicant is beta mu somebody's name Paul
Levine says he's
the owner is D the applicant isn't this all mute I mean he
's not the person that
actually asked for this so why are we listening to Paul Lev
ine if beta mu is
doing the request one of my questions and frankly can we
send carpet baggers
going away from my neighborhood they don't want this in
your neighborhood you
don't want them building 10-story buildings in your
neighborhood please
give us a little respect treat us right thank you mr. Beck
we need a little bit
of respect before you come in say oh we're just gonna throw
this up there's
services of water sewer all downhill you know you can build
it you just want to
be greedy no carpet baggers thank you Randy hunt 722 West
Oak to be followed
by John Warren
so I wanted to follow up with a sorry I'm Randy hunt 722
West Oak and there's
probably at least 10 more people it should be here but they
're all sick like
I am but we're toughening out because we respect a
neighborhood and we
appreciate the fact that y'all do too so you asked me a
good question last time
and the question was when was the last time you talked with
the Texas Historic
Commission why I can give you an update I did on Monday and
what I found out is
that they've given us staff approval for us to have a
National Register District
with about 350 structures in it so the map that we're
showing right here
this is around Calhoun and this is the area that we're
talking about right now
now I don't know why in the world this area between our
historic district and
the West Oak Historic District was written off we can't
allow that I want
to show you a map of what it didn't look like in 1917
hundred years ago so here
it is and this is our core this is our culture this is why
people come to
Denton this is why they're proud of it this is our downtown
core area and these
jokers want to put a 10-story structure in it oh this is a
residential area has
been for over a hundred years and we need to respect that
that's a residential
area now you know I hear this argument about the you know
they can't make money
on it well you know what I you asked a good question last
time you asked about
compromises I would compromise and have the Med Park people
put something in
over here but you know when when there was a public meeting
per se that these
guys called it wasn't a city called meeting one of the
people that was there
lives in the area his name is Craig Clifton he's in the
hospital right now
but he was told well you know if you don't like this we'll
just put seven to
ten stories there so I would say to y'all fine if that's
what they want to
try to do let them but respect our neighborhood and give us
a chance to
create a national register district over here so I asked
the Texas Historic
Commission as well as another state agency what would
happen if if there was
a structure there and they say you ever been to around
Texas Tech you ever been
to Lubbock it said you know why would the people and didn't
want to write off
a neighborhood like that so that's what we're up against
and you know there is
no compromise that's what you're hearing and I would dare
venture to you that the
reason that Lee asked for a two-week delay is because he
was doing an AMA
visit you know management style and he went around to talk
to city council
members to see if he could get their support that's not
compromise that's
manipulation we need to protect a historic area that's been
there for over
a hundred years this was the area that was built up by the
by the faculty that
started the North Texas Normal College give us a chance
thank you have a
question for you Commissioner Beck thank you chair
thanks for your presentation you do so eloquently would you
be opposed you
mentioned that either voted up or voted down but if we
voted down then it runs
the risk of them bringing in that ten foot would you be
opposed to the idea
of this this overlay district that I suggested to keep it
from exceeding
certain limits I would propose heights that wouldn't go
beyond three stories
lower densities more closely related to what DR2 is would
you be opposed to
something like that no I'm all about compromise okay you
know we don't have
to have it a particular way but make it look like the rest
you know there's
already a three-story structure there that was on you know
the old flow
hospital three stories okay because we want to think
ultimately the idea here
is to protect this area long term and not exactly right you
know what we all
saw from Med Park that was three stories these guys want to
say it has to be
their way or the highway I'm saying go hit the highway okay
thank you sir
another couple questions for you Commissioner Roselle thank
you sir thank
you mr. Hahn for your presentation I wasn't here last
meeting and maybe I
missed this what are the dots represent those are
structures that were already
identified by the Texas Historic Commission as contributing
houses so all
of those black dots are things that make an area
contributing so to get a
national register area you have to have at least 50% of all
the structures
within an area to be contributing you know to have
integrity of how it looked
like when it was first built okay so it looks like on the
block and in question
between normal Brian between oak and scripture you have 14
contributing
structures I see nine multifamily complexes and some of
these dots that
you have listed here are in fact look like multi-story
building some it was is
this recent or these apartments this was back in 1995 these
dogs are was in 95
when the survey was done okay and the survey hasn't been
updated that's what
we're currently doing we're asking the Texas Historic
Commission would they
also consider this area as you know an extension of the
National Register
District that they've already approved by staff that we're
working on right now
and they're like if you get busy is the process once the
staff approves that at
Texas Store Commission will they resurvey this to see these
apartments or
what's the process do you know yeah we we have to go out
and do the footwork we
take pictures we we do the ownership we do the research for
it and then we let
the Texas Historic Commission define if it's contributing
or not and that has
not been done yet not for this area okay for the area on
that side of the green
line it all has there's about 350 structures in there okay
thank you
okay no more questions thank you John Warren to be followed
by Anita Ramsey
I'm John Warren I live with my wife and four children at 11
09 West Congress and
I think I originally put in opposition to this project I
still would probably
land there living in the neighborhood my primary concern
though more than what
the structure looks like because I feel like this this
portion of the peninsula
as mr. Ozel mentioned it it sort of was the historicity of
it sort of way by by
long ago when they were allowed to build all these
apartments on it I drove up
and down the streets today there's 18 apartment complexes
on between those two
streets and all the houses are just dwarfed by those
apartments and so
that's less of a concern to me the greater concern living
and and having a
family close to this prop this project is is the traffic
and I don't know what
PNZ has in terms of your decision-making regarding how you
think about the
traffic in the neighborhood but it's already terrible the
students will walk
to campus but they're gonna drive to Kroger which means
they're gonna drive
down scripture on to ponder and then on to my street where
there was a hit and
run last week and it happens consistently and so I don't
know how
that plays into again your guys's decision to rezone it but
that that
becomes my primary concern living in the neighborhood and I
just want to thank you
guys for your voluntary service I think sometimes we can be
pretty angry and
emotional in our presentations but you guys are voluntarily
giving your time
and so I think you're to be commended for that and we
should exercise restraint
and patience as we address you and so I appreciate what you
guys do thank you
thank you have a question for you Commissioner Hussbett so
John I'm gonna
use you as a case study okay right so if the size doesn't
bother you that that's
great but so the other apartments there because I've driven
it and best I can
tell they're about two two stories and again I forget we're
flow hospital that
might be three how do you when you when you're driving let
's say you're driving
up up scripture or whatever so that's uphill so that's kind
of different so
let's say we're leaving chopsticks going the other way yeah
I the fact that it
would double everything else for I mean it'll be like 10
miles I mean that I
mean I get I get the traffic thing but the aesthetics thing
doesn't really
affect you yeah well there's city park apartments right
across the street that
I mean this rendering is much more aesthetically beautiful
than City Park
that's this gigantic yellow stucco right monstrosity that's
across the street
from this so right this looks better to me than City Park
which is right next
door and much better than what's what's currently there I I
don't however love
the sort of veiled kind of threat I won't call it I mean
maybe that's not
what they're doing I'm with you that doesn't feel great it
's it's accurate
yeah okay thank you thank you sir
Annetta Ramsey to be followed by Patrice like my name is an
ad Ramsey I live at
722 West Oak Street I am opposed to another single
residence occupancy unit
in a historic neighborhood where the norm is one story I'm
concerned that
the compromise has been asked for and the only compromise
that's been offered
is you can have something you don't like or something you
really don't like that
is not compromise UNT and TWU have 45,000 students and not
all of those
students live in town many of them commute and they're
happy doing that many
of them commute with public transportation which is what I
did when I
first started graduate school many of these students are
graduate students
they're married they're not in a place where they would be
candidates for these
housing units but by the city's own estimate last year you
have 9,400 rent by
the room things and so if you do the math that's 20% of the
students I think
you're already pushing maximum density if this is a service
to UNT why is
UNT not speaking about that don't you think their silence
is kind of deafening
I do I think they would speak up if they thought it was a
good thing I have
spoken with them and I just I think that these units do not
do a good job for
students I work with a lot of college students and the
students that I work
with who were in residence halls make good grades and they
graduate on time
because they have a lot of support from the university the
students who live in
these units are in a party atmosphere the SRO units cannot
because of the
fair housing act turn people away because they're not UNT
or TW students
so they get some people in there who want a party and it's
not in their best
interest and so a lot of the students that I have worked
with have ended up
leaving UNT and going on to another university because they
failed out but I
hear a lot of awful stories and the most common one is
where a roommate decides
to move in a boyfriend or a girlfriend and nobody wants to
say anything because
they don't want any drama about that or someone gets a pet
and then they're
never around to care for the pet pet damages the property
and then all of the
roommates have to pay for it but the saddest story I heard
happened in City
Park and it was where a client got raped in her own bedroom
and it was some guy
who showed up at a party that her roommates threw they were
all underage he
had alcohol he was 21 so he brought alcohol to the party
they all got drunk
I think she got drugged he dragged her into her room and
raped her and her
roommate saw what was going on but they didn't want to call
the police because
they were drinking underage they were doing something bad
to be sure there are
some students who are happy in these units but they're very
expensive it's
eight hundred to a thousand dollars a room so it's not
cheap it's not
something that many families can afford I have two sons
they live at home they go
to UNT but they live at home and I think that there are a
lot of people like me
and Denton who want to get their kids out of college
without debt so I am
begging you please please do not let UNT encroach anymore I
love the university
but they've already encroached in every direction please
don't let them go north
thank you thank you
Patrice like we're lucky followed by Deb Armenter
I was after adjust okay I'm Patrice like 1109 Egan so I
live in the Pecan
neighborhood that is just right near the site that we're
talking about I first
have a question about the historical preservation officers
visit to this site
it's a question I guess for staff is this protocol for the
HPO to visit sites
and did our HPO indicate that this area has no historical
significance is like
our HPO is present and I will ask Roman to come down and
address his site visit
with the applicant and answer some of the questions that
you've just asked okay
I'll remember where my time was
thank you thank you for let me come up my name is Roman Mc
Allen I'm the
historic preservation officer for the city of Denton and
this is my first
opportunity to talk about this but I want to make sure I
just directly answer
your question on protocol I don't this is I try to be very
customer service
oriented when I work as a preservation officer for the city
I had the same role
the city of Brownsville and that I was just called to come
out and consider
this property and the project that was going on here and I
knew it was
situated between two historic districts and I knew was
surrounded by a lot of
historic resources that if if one were able to if we were
to move forward with
creating a historic district in this area that there were
potentially
contributing resources there so whenever I have the
opportunity really to get
involved early in anything and I to answer your question I
didn't say I
didn't support this and I think Lee will support me on this
I just walked around
with the architects and with them and pointed out what I
saw is contributing
for example there are two houses on this proposed site that
would be
contributing resources if there were a historic district
but you might have to
gerrymandered around the large number of apartment units
unless they're over 50
years of age and get into all that but I visited as just as
I always will with
anyone anyone in the city who calls me unless you know my
supervisor would say
don't do that or something I tend to just come out not pass
judgment but offer
my knowledge about preservation when that happens I don't
know question for
you Commissioner Rizzo thank you I appreciate you being
here I have one
question this site currently is vacant is to your
understanding correct and so it
doesn't contribute historically in any measurable way to
the neighborhood
currently well I'm sorry I mean no no that's part a well it
's its vacancy
doesn't make it non-contributing it's the building that's
there so and your
estimation is part B of this question is there any project
or development that
would contribute to an historical neighborhood if it's
built in 2017
meaning if we were to construct an old craftsman style home
would that in your
estimation now contribute to the historicity of the
neighborhood or is
there anything there that could increase the function of
that property well the
short answer is no you could build something that for
example in the other
three districts we have designed architectural guidelines
there so most of
our districts are almost completely full so if you look at
West Oak okay Korean
the Bell Avenue there aren't a lot of vacant lots there so
but there's still
architectural regulations in each of those districts and if
someone chose to
build in there they would have to comply with those
regulations and the landmark
Commission would consider the project and see if it fits in
well with the
district but that particular building that you build would
not be contributing
and it's just due to its being new typically though not
always 50 years is
the mark but you might have especially today with the
popularity and the
recognition of mid-century architecture where that line
moves along for example
here in Denton we have the so-called idiot seal area. More
question and I've been
tapped told we need to kind of move for this. Commissioner
back. Thank you chair
thank you Roman. What you evaluated was the specific
property that we're talking
about rezoning you didn't evaluate anything outside the
parameters of that
we walked the street and and we noted I think together but
I mean I was put it
mainly pointing out what would be a contributing building
if there were a
district buildings that obviously and anyone who goes down
the street can kind
of tell the the wooden structures with the double hung
windows or things like
that so we did point out on the facing streets there that
day we just walked
around the three sides of the property. So roughly in a say
two or three hundred
foot circumference of the area that might be historical
value to some of the
buildings there? Well yes. Okay okay thank you. No thank
you I have no further
questions appreciate it. Thank you. Miss like you think you
had three minutes or
so left to go? 320. 320. All right thank you okay so thank
you for
cleaning that up Roman. Now so I got up and spoke two weeks
ago I missed
Commissioner Rizel I missed Commissioner Sullivan but again
as somebody who lives
very very close to this site I understand I'm a new I'm a
lover of the new
urbanist style and I do agree that in particularly in the
core of Denton
density well managed and well situated density is going to
be important for a
sustainable Denton. Now part of I noticed that the
apartment complex that was
approved I understand it was a different zoning district
but the early apartment
complex that was approved first of all apartments not SROs
and I do I do agree
with Ms. Anderson that SROs are not multifamily they are
glorified dorms but
the other apartment complex required an SUP to do
residential only and one of
the problems I think with this proposed development and of
course we all know
that this the zoning could change they could flip this
property tomorrow there
is nothing tying any of these site plans these elevations
any of this landscaping
to the zoning request we all know that but there's no
commercial there's no
mixed-use proposed thus far the zoning category that's
being requested wouldn't
require that right and yes these people are going to have
to get in the car and
go buy head of lettuce now it's true you can get to walk to
CVS you can get your
shampoo there are no groceries to be found nearby all of
these people they
may be walking they may be taking their bike but they're
going to be on our
streets they are going to be driving down Congress Street
past mr. Warren's
house they're going to be driving down oak they're going to
be driving down
Hickory the north and north side of campus is really not
meant to house
students it will always be on the tax rolls Commissioner
Roselle I'm if we put
500 bodies on the UNT site it's not going to make any
difference if we put
those bodies on scripture because the development there
whatever that
development is is going to generate taxes we don't lose
anything UNT has
500 beds coming online they have they've been approved for
500 more beds UNT
wants their students on campus right now there are
approximately 37,000 students
enrolled at UNT about 31,000 of them are undergraduate
students but 3,000 students
are a hundred percent online and that includes students who
are also the
current count includes students who are part-time students
as well so when we're
looking at 9,000 SRO beds right now this is not necessary
for Denton not
necessary for UNT and it's completely contextually
inappropriate for the
neighborhoods to the north
another question for you one more question Commissioner
Taylor thank you
dr. like I have have a few questions I think I have one
question if I wrap it up
altogether okay so I'm going to try and do that you
obviously have an interest
in the historic area the historic nature of the area and
you said you have a
preference for new urban new urbanist design I do and how
do we balance those
two things in a contextual design that would be appropriate
for this area I
think that the density does have to decrease for one thing
the body the
beating heart density but it also needs to have some type
of commercial
opportunities that the neighborhood can partake in it is a
very we're a walkie
neighborhood my neighbors walk to chopsticks all the time
and we you know
walk to CVS the CVS really has been an amenity up there
near Fry Street but as
it is you know we're not you know we would appreciate more
commercial more
retail more neighborhood scaled services in that area
remembering that when I
moved to the neighborhood flow hospital still stood and
that's how a lot of that
zoning came about by the way over on scripture in that area
is because we
supported a hospital and the hospitals gone you know you
don't expect your
institutions to just pack up leave and get bulldozed but it
was but a lot of
the again the good services amenities and just things that
were available to
the neighborhood were things we would have welcome back
okay and to follow up
you said fewer like as you put it fewer bodies like a lower
lower person density
right I know you've got some experience with the the
dimensional and technical
aspects of zoning what what would that be in units an acre
height or something
like that what is your what is your number well part of it
I think is mass
because there are yes many apartment complexes they're low
intensity both in
scale height their apartments and so and that's one of the
things about the SRO
is to be honest with you and again I do I teach at UNT I
teach these people I
like them I'm not saying I don't want to live near my
students but we have a lot
of faculty who would like to live near campus they were we
have a lot of staff
who would like to live near campus and the faculty and
staff whom I've known
who've lived near the university have chosen to live if
they can find a place
in low intensity two-story apartment complexes that are
nearby so it is a
matter of mass it's a matter of scale I can't say okay I
think it should be this
many beating hearts per acre but something that again is
contextually this
is so contextually insensitive both in scale and in usage
that it's I find it
just inappropriate button up against my neighborhood and
you know being to both
the east and to the west of two other historical
neighborhoods thank you one
more question Commissioner Roselle thank you chair thank
you for speaking out and
nailing the time well done some individuals have talked
about not having
a need for this type of development but you mentioned
something in your answer
you said that if your fellow professors can find a place
are you hearing that
it's difficult to find a place to live near campus it is
right for people who
move to town their new faculty and who would like to get a
feel for Denton
before they commit long term to a neighborhood or to a
house many people
would like to be closer to campus we have a couple of my
colleagues spend part
of their year in another state they don't want to own a
house but they sure
would like to live close to campus a lot of the time my
students will graduate
and be interested they start like leading real adult lives
but they can't
continue to lead them right and living right where they
would like to live so
there really is a market for people who would be interested
in maintaining I like
living close to UNT I have lived in apartment close to UNT
and I think
there's a there's a market for for this sure thank you
Commissioner Beck thank you chair do you think it's our
oaths are the type of
dwellings that would meet their needs I have a really hard
time supporting as
our oaths for one thing it is it's a in my opinion a
different usage you know an
apartment is meant to house people who have you know have a
community once you
develop build an SRO the possibilities in my opinion and I
don't I'm not an
interior designer but you'd never be able to return that
dot that
configuration to an apartment where somebody may say I'm
going to live here
with my wife and children for a couple of years while I'm
you know getting a
feel for Denton and you know the SRO is sold some of the
time as an inexpensive
alternative there are dorm the high that the priciest dorm
itory on UNT's campus
is about $790 a month and the lowest is about $440 a month
there as we become
find more places on campus since we've got the potential
for a thousand beds we
will you know be able to house people on campus you know
keep them closer
potentially save them money this way and no I don't think
the SROs are
compatible with neighborhoods again I like my students but
I know that their
investment in you know a community in an SRO is scanty I
drive I walk by you center
at the end of every semester and they bring open dumpsters
and park them in
Oak Street and just throw stuff in and I'm not talking
clothes they didn't take
to the goodwill I'm talking they're throwing toilets away
they're throwing
drywall away I mean it must be a pricey venture to refurb
after every move out
at the end of every semester but they've got big roll away
dumpsters out there so
it can't be that much more keeping up an apartment thank
you
Deb Armentar hi Deb Armentar do I need to say my address
yeah 2003 Misty Woodlane
I really appreciate the comments that others have made and
I want to try not
to repeat things that others have said I too am opposed to
this SRO I too believe
that a private dorm like this does not belong in a hundred-
year-old historic
neighborhood especially one that is so important to the
very identity of this
town I want to say a couple of things about the process by
which this
development has has come up for discussion number one I
just want to
express just how surprised and I must say disappointed I
was to hear that
staff approved this incompatible building in such an
obviously his
historic neighborhood that we hear spoken of so often as
part of our
historic downtown the the pride and joy of Denton and I
also want to speak kind
of forward in the process even though I know you're not
counsel you're your P&Z
but that when this goes forward and I I hope that you all
vote vote no to this
and vote with the people and instead of with the the
developer who is in this
for-profit and doesn't have to to live with all this I hope
the council
remembers that this this wonderful city that we have that
they keep touting as
such a filled with so much charm such a so unique so unlike
Plano Arlington and
in some of the newer cities around us that when they if
they say yes one by
one to proposals like this they're essentially killing the
thing that they
love and Denton will no longer be Denton if it gets taken
over piecemeal by
developments that request an inter granted exceptions and
exemptions one
after the other we need long-term city planning that
respects neighborhoods
and when change does come and I believe in in change there
's always I mean
change is always good we don't want to resist changes for
the sake of change
for the sake of resisting change but change the best change
comes from the
grassroots the best change comes from the people so if
there were people if
there were students at UNT who were just begging for
another one of these
expensive private dorms you know then at least we could say
there's a need for
that if UNT was asking for this we could say there's a need
the best way to
establish need is really to see if people are asking for it
and if people
aren't asking for it and I don't hear anyone asking for it
except the the
developer and and again I was surprised that that our staff
planning staff
recommended it then that says there's not a need for it so
anyway it just
seems like a no-brainer to me so anyway thank you very much
all of you for
volunteering for your time and thanks for the neighborhood
who came out I
don't live in this neighborhood but I happen to work at UNT
I teach at UNT I
love my students my the students I teach can't afford to
live in a place like
this I know there's some who can but I know that there are
none who are crying
out for this so anyway thank you very much thank you we
have a lot of cards I
have actually just for the record I've got 21 in opposition
and I have two in
support and I'm going to just read the ones that I have
that have notes on them
but just for the record that's what we have in opposition
and support I have
Christy Woods opposed this area is an older community
single family it does
not lend itself to absorbing the proposed change in zoning
John Bennett
who is opposed SRO is not the best type of use in our
neighborhood
have a net of Ramsey opposed there's no comments on that
one Warren Hunt is
opposed not in keeping with neighborhood traffic problems
and then John Morris
opposed not an apartment complex it's a dormitory those are
all the cards that
we have this is a public hearing anyone who would like to
speak on this item
please come forward at this time
my name is Paul Meltzer at 1914 West Oak Street first I'd
like to express
appreciation to Randy Hunt for the work he has done to get
recognition for this
historic area I would also like to express appreciation to
the developer
who actually did listen to a degree made some modifications
in response to what
was heard obviously what you're hearing tonight it's
clearly not far enough and
and where we are now where you know we're looking at kind
of a blackmail
maneuver I don't I think that's beneath you and I don't
think you want to do
that I don't think you truly want to do that especially
when there's so
evidently a deal to be had here I mean can we just have
some common sense can
we creatively recognize the very obvious solution to this
problem the developer
said he sort of expressed interest but doubt about the
possibility of
developing on the West Side he said well you know I couldn
't do it there because
it's it's dr2 can we not make a deal can we not have a
continuance and and if he
backs off of the historic area where he's it's clearly not
welcome can we open up
the opportunity for cement city to become University City
to go from dr2 to
DCG I would personally stand here and advocate and testify
in support of this
concept in support of this developer if they were to go
down this route it would
open up tremendous economic opportunity the city is not
anti development we're
anti destroying the things we value and that you value so I
encourage your
creativity to make this deal thank you again this is a
public hearing anyone
who would like to speak on this item please come forward at
this time on that
item yes sir we'd like another one that's all the cards
need to get a card
if you could fill out a card thank you
Kevin Bradshaw 2052 Collins Road I'm usually opposed to
everything that goes
on in the city being a native I hate to see things torn up
but rather than tell
you a lot of things I'd ask questions that come to my mind
I heard the lady
want to go mention flow and what a foolish thing it was
when they tore that
down as I recall that building was six stories tall
sat in on the highest piece of real estate over there didn
't cause a real
big problem but what I'm wondering is that it seems the
most of the people that
live close to the college are not students and the people
that live away
from the college are students so if you could move the
students closer to the
college it cut down on them out of traffic then the people
that aren't
students can go somewhere else to live where the students
come from that would
help or maybe don't know think about that
what's over there maybe something nice left but they ain't
much of it you know
I was listening to that man and I thought man that'd be a
good deal just go
south all the way down to 35 be a pretty good deal but I
believe it was 65 or 6
when they built the first of the tall buildings over at TW
and of course the
world hasn't ended yet from it and it saved an awful lot of
real estate it
gets cheaper as you go up and why not take advantage of it
but and now these
SROs is a new new idea to me and I understood the one's
point that by
having that you don't establish a community one of the
benefits of not
establishing a community there is maybe they won't stay
here when they get out
of school then that will be a tremendous improvement to to
the density of our
problems but so I opinions for what I mean you obviously
all think that's a
wonderful idea but y'all are all me so you know but I as I
was telling a man
earlier at forum I'm founding the anti chamber of commerce
so I'm ready I'm
ready for some changes in debt I mean what what's been
going on the past 30
years ain't working so let's try something different and
this sound like
pretty good deal not very pretty but not as ugly as what
over there now evening
thank you sir so are you opposed or you you're in support
you're in support thank
you for the record great perfect timing for a little humor
this evening again
this is still a public hearing anyone else who would like
to speak on this
item don't have an item number this one okay Jennifer Lane
opposition
1526 Willow Street in Denton and I'm here to speak out
about this in large
part to add my name and opposition to the list and just the
other day I saw a
film of the UNT president who was talking about building
some on-campus
dormitories and he was talking about the not so much the
need for this but that
it creates a university community on campus and the details
of this I don't
have an it's not entirely fleshed out but I have lived in
areas and taught at
universities where it's much too expensive for students to
live off
campus and there is great effort spent on creating an on-
campus community one
of those was Stanford University and I got involved with it
as a resident
fellow which is another term for house master and lived in
those communities
and worked with the residents deans and so on so forth and
it's really a great
way to go as our community grows and people want to live
near and around the
university as the professor was talking about we should
protect the area right
around the university and we should encourage on-campus
dormitory life
because there's more than just SRO life there's resident
assistants there's
other students staffers living there there's an entire
culture of residential
education that already exists at UNT but can be built and
in order to encourage
that we have to also encourage that the neighborhood around
the school be more
of a residential neighborhood and not really SROs also as a
New Yorker I lived
where there were many SROs and these really in that
environment had very sad
history also became quite contentious in tenant landlord
battles and so on and so
forth which is a subject that I haven't been here for the
whole meeting but
that's something that's down the road for Denton and we
should be a little bit
careful about the kinds of buildings that we build that
people don't have that
kind of distance between themselves their living
arrangements and who
actually owns the property it makes for an uncomfortable
environment unpleasant
environment and I think we would be best off avoiding it so
that's the basis of
my opposition okay thank you for your comments welcome
again this is a public
hearing anyone else who would like to speak on this item
please come down at
this time if you haven't filled out a card after you give
us your comments
please fill out a card I'm the unknown Bob Clifton I don't
know what my address
is it's out side of town here I have to agree brother Brad
shaw
Denton has changed immensely when I was a child I used to
sled on Scripture Hill
as before the hospital was over built and I've watched this
town become
basically decimated by one university the other one's
pretty good neighbor and
once one time in my hot rod political career I told some
people at North Texas
either go up or go away they've encroached throughout this
town they've
taken lots of buildings lots of property off the tax rolls
the latest I think
being there whatever that hill is called over there on Teas
ley and Dallas Drive
it took nine million dollars off the tax rolls this thing
here is such a ticky
tacky looking thing I can't believe they're doing it over
there in that
neighborhood I saw one of the City Council members was here
this evening
and I see another one sitting there probably be the next
City Council
member and I think that probably from Bonnie Bray to Winds
or on the north and
Woodrow on the east and probably 35 on the south with Dena
should be some kind
of a historic preserve if nothing else but these people
coming in from out of
town dangling money in front of everybody is crazy this is
a town to
live in I can't even breathe because of the damn pollution
this is this is a
this is a town with residents it's known as a college town
and it used to be and
administrators kind of fit in instead of running big
businesses that they think
they're running and I'm just rambling I just wanted to take
up time like Bradshaw
did but I know more than he does but I think this this spot
ty it broke my heart
when they tore down the hospital to build that crap from a
group of
California but that was our mayor Julian Brock's do it and
she had no roots in
this town she's hillbilly from over there and Van Alstine
or Van or wherever
she came from and they have no they have no interest in
this town other than can
they flip it for some money and this has got this it's got
to stop it's
nationwide it's just not dead it's everywhere but this
chasing the almighty
buck has nothing to do with little mobility I've still got
a minute left so
what do you want to talk about if we could just clarify for
the record are
you living in the city of Denton not yet but I could at any
given moment all I
got to do is go across I don't it's in the county all I got
to do is go across
the barbed wire fence and I'll be in didn't we just want to
be able to
identify I will fill out a card for you so that you'll be
very happy thank you
sir I guess I've lived in didn't too long went out but
anyway that's another
story so what else can you be entertained with guess we
talk about old
folks and tax freezes and that silliness but anyway that
has nothing to do with
P&Z I can't really think of anything else I do admire you
people for putting
up with all this stuff yeah but I can't see the traffic I
do have an idea that
I'm going to present to council yes probably I'll take it
to P&Z first but
we'll talk about that at a later date thank you for your
time thank you for
your comments again this is a public hearing anyone else
who would like to
speak on this item please give us your name and address and
then fill out a
card for us please sir Tim Garenger 1108 West Congress
Street I'd like to speak in
opposition to this and I'll be brief because people have
said pretty much
the same things I'm gonna say and it's getting late I live
very close to the
site not close enough to get a notification also it's not
involved in
any type of community meetings with the developer two main
reasons I'm against
this are it just doesn't fit the neighborhood I moved in
neighborhood
full understanding that the current use is not idea it's
not a pretty place it's
probably gonna be developed but this proposal here looks
completely out of
place it's just too big for the neighborhood it also doesn
't really
provide anything for the people that live there that aren't
students you know
it'd be nice if there's some mixed use some restaurants
whatever my other main
concern is the traffic now I came to the last meeting and I
remember some of the
commission asked if they had done any traffic studies or
numbers and a member
of the city staff came up and said yes but it was a very
weak study and it
didn't really hold much weight I can tell you that the
traffic there is
getting worse and worse every year it's probably the most
popular place in Denton
to run a stop sign or to peel out I can't imagine I don't
buy this idea that
this is gonna make this a completely walkable situation I
fully support that
want people to walk and bike but as someone who has to go
by youth center
and Fry's our city park every day I could tell you there
are plenty of cars
coming in and out of those buildings and because Oak Street
is one way going west
anybody needs to go east it's coming down Congress Street
if you look at the
map and yeah there's nowhere to buy groceries around there
anyone was go
downtown not everybody's gonna walk a lot of people we
drive down Congress
Street so that's why I'm opposed thank you thank you for
your comments okay
and this is a public hearing anyone else who would like to
speak on this item
anyone else seeing none we will close the public hearing
and open the floor
for discussion Commissioner Taylor thank you chair so to to
answer
Commissioner Beck's heed from earlier I've been trying to
figure out why this
little strip got DCG got zone DCG in 2002 and 1999 there
was a citywide
planning you know organ planning called the Denton plan
2020 and then it took a
few years for citywide rezoning to roll down from that and
a lot of the
rezoning was to to match existing use especially in these
established
neighborhoods and so I was trying to figure out what
existing uses would
drive DCG which is our most intensive zoning category in
our in the downtown
area and I think I found the three things that that caused
this first is
drive-thrus drive-thrus aren't allowed in any other
downtown zoning district so
you had what was the quick stir and before that another
restaurant that has
a drive-thru at the corner of Jago and scripture so that
had to be the only
zoning category and that had that allowed drive-thrus was
DCG and then you
had it pharmacies again a pharmacy if you have a drive-thru
window at a
pharmacy requires DCG then this specific building is that
exists there on the
site today is 32,000 square feet in there's there was a
limitation l-17 that
was amended in 2013 and that's why I know because it was a
contentious
amendment whenever I first joined this commission but until
2013 l-17
restricted the maximum use of a professional or office
space to 25,000
square feet and so l-17 prevented this from being DCN or dr
2 so the only
category where you could have a 30,000 square foot office
building was in DCG
so I think that's why there's this little strip basically
three of the six lots
required this zoning and so they just the gap the gap lots
got zoned in as
well and this is kind of a flaw with the DCG zoning
category it's a huge jump from
DC and DCG it's you know a massive it goes multi basically
multi-use with any
possible use you can have you know nightclubs and office
buildings and a
hundred foot tall buildings and some hundred and something
hundred fifty
units per acre you know this really high density and that's
a jump up from 45
feet and you know 50 units per acre and lots and lots of
restrictions on
restaurants can't be bigger than 5,000 square feet no drive
-throughs no gas
stations no all of these other uses and so the bucket that
everything lands in
is DCG since that was a mistake I don't think we need to
make two mistakes by
expanding DCG another two or three hundred feet into this
into this area this
is a it doesn't really meet the context of the area even
City Park has 35 foot
setbacks from the curb to the to the buildings is 35 feet
this would be 20
feet at that 46 foot height never minding anything higher
46 foot height
20 feet from Scripture it in on December 25th the shadow
that's cast will reach
all the way across the entire street and cast the shadow on
the north side of
Scripture from the height of the buildings and everything
else south of
Scripture and north of oak is about two stories you might
hit 30 35 feet at the
tops of the gables of the apartment buildings over there so
how do we fit in
that context we don't this is not a really a historic
district there might
be some historic homes but at least half of its apartments
built in the 60s or
70s or 80s or some what could have been a historic home
that's been cut into
four apartments or things like that but we still I feel
need to keep the context
of this neighborhood and whenever we talk about context
usually we talk about
zoning in terms of use and so this use is allowed and you
know we've got some
minor dimensional requirements another important aspect of
zoning is form we
especially apply form in our residential areas we have side
yards must be 20 feet
houses must be this far apart away from the street and from
alleys and fences so
forth in and that forms the neighborhood it gives gives us
the neighborhood of
shape like it has to look a certain way and our commercial
zonings really lack a
lot of form guidance we we just have some really basic
dimensional rules and
we don't you know you can have it a brick building or a
concrete building or
whatever but this area with this residential mixed in if we
had something
that matched the form it would fit the context
unfortunately we don't have form
based zoning but I think this would be a prime little area
this dr2 block from
oak to scripture would be a perfect place to have form-
based zoning that
would allow two or maybe even three story apartments with
enough buffer to
the single-family existing homes it would allow infill one
to four lots at a
time we could have you could convert the houses that need
to be demolished into
something else but that that doesn't help us tonight
because we can't enact
form-based zoning tonight however that I think that's the
direction we need to go
with this if this were in West Campus cement city I think
we do need to
rezone cement city to DCG that's a place that needs
commercial it needs the
retail on the ground level and it'd be a great place to
build a 30 or 40 or 50
foot apartment you're not gonna know trees to shed to shade
there's no
historic homes that will be overwhelmed by a 40 or 60 foot
building or 70 foot
building same on South Campus we already have a large area
of South Campus zone
DCG and I think we could even use more down there because
there isn't a
historic neighborhood to protect there isn't there aren't a
lot of historical
assets and cultural assets there and it's still a three-
block walk to campus
so it's a great student housing area but I just can't see
this being appropriate
on the north side of town and I don't think we should take
a veiled threat of
something worse and double down and make two mistakes
instead of one
Commissioner Hespeth I didn't call Lee back up because I
didn't have a question
I was just going to be a long soliloquy so that that's
pointless but I'll just
tell you I echo everything Commissioner Taylor said I can't
and I hope it's
everyone's good at whole numbers and I'm really excited
about Devin Taylor's
Commissioner Taylor's perspective I'm excited about Larry's
perspective and
and I'm looking for more perspective to send a clear
message the the residents
in this community I think it's it's not right to take
someone that is visited
our area who has 100% control right it's rare that someone
comes to us that has
absolute autonomy they can go from meeting every need that
the citizens
want to absolutely ignoring every need the citizens want it
never happens that
way and given that opportunity they said love it or hate it
if you love it we'll
start at hate and if you hate it we'll start it egregious
and and said take it
you know and and that to me is insensitive it's
disconnected to the
area it's it lacks empathy for the area it lacks insight I
mean I grew up on
Bonnie Bray Street and I was up and down scripture all the
time I went to that
howdy duty a million times I don't know that howdy duty
would live in any other
neighborhood I mean I just don't think it would survive I
mean but so I think
there's just so much history in that area that has just
been discarded
because maybe you don't want to pay a premium for somebody
else to buy from a
realtor maybe you want to take advantage of some creative
zoning but I really do
take it as it's just disingenuous given the offer given the
world given the
opportunity to meet and you have complete autonomy you can
meet every
need or ignore every wish and you choose to come as come as
far as your budget
will let you and and knots and stop there and so to my
earlier point when
you leave 21 cards in opposition when you have one two
three four five six seven
eight nine I'll give Bob Clifton half ten and a half so
that's 31 people in
opposition and two in support and you don't I have to
reconcile that with the
people that live here not the people that invest here not
the people that
design here the people that live here and I've been in the
neighborhood and I'm
telling you I know it doesn't fit it does not fit at all
and so I think it's
just for me that that's that's what I have to reconcile and
I don't think it's
again the most glaring thing is they did not there's no
restrictions they could
meet every need that the citizens want and put a three-
story building and
sprawl it across that entire lot they could buy the house
at the end they could
buy the apartments at the end they could I'll tell you you
don't need the swimming
pool if you want to get creative and show some empathy show
some compassion
take the swimming pool out and give out an auditorium
tickets now you're
investing in our city you're invested in an auditorium you
're saying hey kids
we're not going to build a swimming pool because we want to
be sensitive to the
neighborhood and we're guests here but we're also going to
invest in Denton and
say here's season passes for everyone to go to the natatory
just like different
different apartment complexes give season to give a tickets
to the gym or
memberships to the gym that's empathy that's caring that's
understanding that
you bumped up against the wrong neighborhood and so there's
other
neighborhood and I'm absolutely I think we need to move on
that post haste for
cement city I mean I think that absolutely needs upgrade
and so with
that I'll I'll sit back in and watch commissioner Sullivan
when I was going
through all of this I looked at and I thought that doesn't
look too good and
then the more I looked I thought well maybe the
neighborhood needs upgrading
and then I started looking some of these letters and looked
again on the maps and
I'm thinking we've been told we've got two options we can
vote for the change
and they're proposing a 70 foot height which nobody you
know none of the people
want in this overlay thing 45 feet 70 feet 100 feet we
could vote against it
and they'll go all the way to 100 feet well my
understanding is the third
option is we vote against it and when they bring 100 feet
we deny that and we
put it back where it ought to be at whatever level we feel
it's necessary or
prudent or proper at that point in time so that just
because we vote against
this doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to do
something that's against
what the neighborhood wants that we still have another
option down the road
and that is to deny whatever plan they bring to us at that
point in time am I
correct in that I'll let staff address that question should
the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommend denial and depending on what
the outcome is at City
Council let's assume zoning change does not occur the
applicant under both
zoning districts with a split zoning district is actually
able to develop
with multifamily use it is a use that is permitted by right
in the DCG district
and the DR2 district as it relates to the height and my
understanding or
inference from the Commission tonight was to talk about
perhaps some type of
overlay that would restrict potentially the building height
one of the
restrictions that I believe based on what I've heard this
evening from the
applicant was to limit the height of the building to for
example 70 story now
going back to the split zoning the front half of the
development which fronts
scripture the building height the maximum building height
is 100 feet
however the DR2 district to the south which they abide
which they have the
ownership to if I'm not mistaken that height is capped at
45 feet if I'm not
mistaken thanks Julie and so they can they can you know if
they can accommodate
the two zoning districts and the associated development
criteria for these
two zoning districts technically they could develop the
site now if the
zoning change is approved then they have consolidated the
zoning on the entire
three acres and they have the ability to develop under the
DCG parameters which
would permit a maximum building height of 100 feet
something not right it's all I gotta say okay Commissioner
Beck thank you chair
and all I've got a something I can add to what Commissioner
Sullivan's saying as
far as an understatement I've mentioned already but just
you know a few comments
here as I mentioned earlier in the work session the mixed-
use character this
area is not compatible with the DCD district along
scripture that's there's
no doubt about that thanks to Commissioner Tater for
informing us why we got DCG in the first place and I
appreciate that but clearly
rather than and you know not to accuse anybody back then in
2002 but why they
didn't see the writing on the wall with what we're
confronted with today it's a
shame that they didn't revert it back to DR2 and that puts
us in this position
today I think the African has a wonderful product I've said
that I'd be glad to
see them build anywhere else around there again the idea
that we could
rezone cement city to DCG is great that would open that up
for not only this
developer but other developer the idea that we need to
build this for a growing
student population again I think has been reviewed by the
fact by several
statements here that and I guess the most glaring one is
the fact that UNT is
never here to support that notion the footprint that the
part 7 development
with its hundred and fifty dwellings per acre just simply
doesn't represent a
gradual transition I just don't see that it will stick out
and this will diminish
the neighborhood that we all really are fond of and have
been for quite a while
so what I would consider doing and for everybody to think
about here is make a
motion because we want to protect this area again from
future encroachments
again because this is not gonna end it's going to come back
up and I don't think
denial is gonna work like we want this Manal said that this
could not they
could work against it so my suggestion is we approve the
applicant's request
with the amendment that we attach a mixed-use residential
overlay that
limits building heights and a few other things and I would
limit the building
height to 40 feet I'd keep it at what dr4 is we I want to
keep it at three
stories if that's 40 feet fine if it's 35 feet pardon me is
three story right
right but that might we might squeeze it four story in that
so I want to keep it
at three stories keep it at now I'm okay with the 30 dwell
ings per acre that's in
the dr4 and the if I could just make a note for the
Commission you don't want
to down zone so the minimum that they would have to or the
maximum they would
have to do if they did the most restrictive zoning
according to their
law it would be 45 you don't want to go below that on your
overlay okay I
wouldn't or I could do not all right then let's say the
requirements that
allow heights and setbacks and everything in the dr2 would
be what this overlay
would consist of in we could start with this area that this
project wants to
build on but I see this expanding even further going up to
Oak Street to
scripture maybe a little bit further south and as far west
as Bonnie Bray
this is not the mentor harassed developers we need we need
good
dwellings for families to live in and grow at a steady rate
but we need to do
it that doesn't diminish this area and we lose it in the
long run so I would I
wouldn't make that move that we approve it with the overlay
district
restrictions you make an emotion are we still doing
discussion well let's do
discussion then I can make a motion Commissioner Ellis
thank you chair thank
you everyone for speaking and thank you the applicants for
for presenting first
off I guess I'd like to say I'm what a missed opportunity
our city has had with
putting us in this position this was clearly a lot that
should have been
rezoned a long time ago it is a mess of a zoning and it's
what puts us in this
position today I'm sure the reason staff is recommending it
is is so we can we
can collectively put one zoning on this property which
makes no sense to be
divided in half and while I understand that this
development does not fit in
this area I know we take the gamble by denying this and
allowing that front
portion to be up to a hundred feet I would have to say that
's a gamble I'm
willing to take versus rezoning this setting it up for if
this project
doesn't work setting it up for a hundred store a hundred
feet you know throughout
this entire footprint you are taking two residential
properties along with this
request there's two single-family properties involved my
fear is this
happens it collapses the rest of the street the streets on
either side of it
it goes towards Hickory and towards the University and
takes that we've already
denied an SRO that that came before us although I do think
the project still
alive in council but that was the Vertmans property that
would clearly
come back if this happens now you've got this basically
student housing project
in the middle of two historic districts it does not fit I
understand the SRO
type building is the way to develop today in university
cities I don't blame
a developer for putting numbers together that makes sense
obviously that's what
every developer wants the money has to make sense or why do
the development
this is not the place to do this we have places to do this
if we work together as
a city as has been talked about today we can make these
developments work in our
city to where it is profitable for the developer and it
works better not only
for the student population but for the people who are
living here this piece of
property needs development it really does it just doesn't
need this
development and and just because we have done things wrong
in the past by
rezoning this the way it was rezoned to which I will not
understand but just
because we've done that wrong in the past doesn't mean we
have to continue
doing it wrong in the future I think we have to start
fixing things
well sitting on this Commission for a number of years and
seeing lots of
different cases come before us I know a lot of times we
have opportunities to
speak our opinions about what we'd like to see there in the
fact that we are
faced with tonight is what the zoning is whether it was a
mistake or not that is
the zoning that's there and so really to me it boils back
down to the facts that
we have which is a strictly a zoning case I do appreciate
the developers doing
some neighborhood meetings I saw the project that you
presented the Waco
project and I think the project that you have taken from
your neighborhood
meetings to do a very different design from what you built
in the past are the
types of things that we've talked about and had people say
about compromise that
you've listened you've made changes to your project I don't
know what you've
invested in it to this point I'm sure a considerable amount
to get it to this
point me personally you may choose with the zoning to do
the one option that you
have which is a hundred foot tall building if you want I
appreciate you
not coming in and saying it as a veiled threat I love some
people might take it
that way that you've at least approached this that you've
presented an
opportunity to us to do something at a lesser density I
think a more
aesthetically pleasing project than what could be built
there and I think it's
difficult sometimes to have to face the facts of what can
be built there versus
what somebody's proposing to build there that is a lesser
than what could be done
and so I have the opinion and I'm gonna make a motion to
such that we do go
ahead and rezone this property and take the opportunity
that we have to put an
overlay on the part that can be a hundred feet tall and
bring that down
because the part that is not to be rezoned can already have
a 45 foot tall
building on it and you're essentially I believe from your
drawings proposing a
essentially a 45 foot building around the perimeter which
you can build by
right as is so I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to make
a motion that we're
going to approve this with an overlay on it and I'd like to
have I'm gonna make
the motion and we'll have probably some discussion about
the
although we're having obviously some discussion of some
legal issues
yeah
, sorry.
[inaudible]
Lee, would you please come up we're having some discussion
here on notice and
our ability to do at the mic please sir. I'm gonna turn
this over to Jennifer and
let her explain what the issue is. I'll give a little bit
of introduction and
then I'll ask Jennifer to step down the legal part. The
issue in being able to
put an overlay on the property is that currently the notice
that we have in the
zoning case that we have is on the DR2 property. There is
no notice in regards
to the DCG property that's in the front and so the problem
that I think
Jennifer may clarify a little bit and we may want to have
some discussion here
just free mic back and forth to you about continuing this
is in order for us
to put an overlay over the entire property the front piece
would have to
be included in the notice and since it wasn't noticed we
can't legally put an
overlay over the DCG portion we could go ahead and up zone
the back part and put
the overlay on it but I don't think the Commission here is
going to support that
because we have no ability to do anything on the DCG when
we if we were
to move that forward to an it DCG on the back put an
overlay then we have 70 on
the back and still 100 on the front versus I think what
trying to be some
compromise is allow you to have some up zone on the back
portion and overlay the
whole thing so that you have a cap project so that's the
dilemma that we
have in our ability I think to try to find some compromise
on the side to put
an overlay on the top that's our issue and so I'm going to
throw it to you and
see how you would respond to wanted to do a continuance and
re-notice and come
back or if you want to up and down vote this evening and
see where this goes if
I understand correctly and I think I do any kind of an
overlay that would be
imposed tonight as a recommendation the P&Z does not
approve the zoning nor do
they establish any overlays they only recommend to City
Council but it can
only be for that portion that is in the zoning request
tonight it could not be
for the entire piece of property which makes sense I'd like
a minute to
discuss with Paul but to be quite frank and unless I'm
totally ignorant let me
visit with Paul because I'm not sure that even if the 70
foot could be put on
the whole thing that the P&Z would be amenable to that and
I'm not sure that
that's a good reason to continue so okay would ask speak to
the timing of
re-noticing and bringing this back depending on the next
meeting schedule
it's at least 30 to 45 days out to come back to maximum as
it relates coming
back to the planning and zoning Commission so about 30 days
because we
have to do notice Jennifer you looking at the calendar we
don't have our next
would be April the 12th
April the 12th would be the soonest that we could get to it
April 12th would be a
planning Commission and then City Council would be it would
be the
following well the following Tuesday is the fourth Tuesday
of the month so that
would be up to the agenda committee whether or not they put
it on that
particular agenda but we would try for the following week
so April the 12th
well so long as the agenda committee allows us to put it on
for the 18th
right exactly and we're just double checking the notice to
make sure that
that we don't have the ability to do that now but we're
just double checking
that notice to see what was published because I have an
opportunity to address
that tonight actually bear with us well
, I don't think we have a motion on the table. I don't know
if I finished stating the motion. Yeah, okay. That's fine.
We're going to take a recess just for you so that we can
find a way to do this tonight. It's not going to be real
quick. We have a staff of people to speak. I think what we
're going to do, I think what we're going to do
in respect to the time and your project is I'm going to
withdraw the motion that
I was beginning to state and we're going to take a recess,
let staff have a few
minutes to gather their facts on their calendars and then
come back we'll reopen
the meeting and then we'll see what we've been able to
gather give you all
an opportunity to discuss how you would like to go and then
I think maybe an
appropriate thing for us to do is a commission when we come
back is have
maybe a little more discussion to see if there would even
be enough consensus if
we re-noticed brought your project back that the Commission
has a consensus that
they would support that then it would be worthwhile doing
the continuous and if
there's not going to be support you would at least know
kind of where you are
this evening and we can see where the project goes from
here and I think that's
probably the sure the question I have is if we go with the
continuance that will
allow the re-noticing so the overlay could be on the entire
site regardless of
the P&Z decision when we go to council we wouldn't have to
re-notice to put
that I know for the council to actually put the overlay on
the whole side if
that's what they wanted to do we could do it both at the
same time all right
thank you so with that at 1055 and we call a 10 minute
recess and then we'll
reconvene
good evening and welcome back from break I'm gonna call us
back into order at 10
after 11 and I'm gonna ask Lee to come back up and I think
we're gonna clarify
our notice and then have some discussion with you all then
we'll continue so I'm
gonna turn it over to Manal for explanation of where we are
on the notice
thank you chairperson strange I would like to clarify for
the audience and our
viewing audience as well as the Commission that I have
looked at the
notification that we sent out to property owners within 200
and 500 feet
as well as the notification that was published in the
newspaper or the daily
and based on that notification we have over notified the
request which does
indeed incorporate the property to the north that fronts or
abuts scripture so
if there is if there are suggestions or discussion as it
relates to the
creation of an overly district then that is an opportunity
that the Commission
has before them tonight and just so that we can be clear
for the record we had
noticed both in the paper and in the agenda for three acres
and the breakdown
of the property as I understand it is that the current
zoning of dr2 is on 1.3
acres and the current zoning of DCG is on 1.7 acres
approximately as so
altogether we've noticed both parcels so what we would do
if if the
Commission's inclined to make a motion is to consider the
zoning the rezone on
the one acreage and then the overlay on all of the acreage
so we do have it
noticed and I still had the floor I had a motion and I
withdrawn it and I have a
couple of questions it's now that we have a clarification
that we can do an
overlay the direction that I was started with on my motion
was to put an overlay
at a cap on the maximum height of the building and I
believe you have two or
three levels on your building and I'd like for you all to
clarify what those
heights are and the percentage of the building because I'd
like to make my
motion to where we can put a cap on it and give you the
levels that you're
looking for minimize the exterior portion of the building
and so the
questions I'm going to ask is I want to know the outside
perimeter height the
building I think was 46 46 okay so if we gave maybe a
couple of feet just for
plus or minus error 48 feet and then you have a another
section that steps up and
what is the height of it that's 56 yeah that's the top of
the parapet yeah okay
do you know about what the percentage is of that part of
your building approximately
footprint and and then the highest point that you have for
your amenity center
that you'd like to do yeah that is 68 feet 11 inches there
's 67 11 or 67 11
67 feet 11 inches at the highest point of the building so
70 gives you trying to be
a little bit of plus or minus 2 feet on what you think in
case there's some
variation in topography or something like that and then
they would like to
get the percentages of those in the direction that I was
going to go is to
take a 35 degree the slope that we've talked about in our
work session two
weeks ago and again tonight if we kept that that and did a
percentage so if you
can give me the percentage of your 58 feet area if you
could come up to the
microphone that would be helpful so that's 58 feet for the
five-story and
the five-story is I do not have that square footage here at
hand today but if
we were to
could this drawing be used as an exhibit to represent the
limits I hate I know
it's not an ADP or an SUV or something. We'd need more
specificity as it relates to so the
elevations and the heights and the staggering that sure you
have the square
footage of the five-story of the fifth story. Let me see if
I have anything
additional to add to this.
Try and scale it. Do you have a scaler?
[inaudible]
I appreciate where you're headed we just don't have those
numbers and we weren't
prepared for that.
Try that.
Can I ask what what your height you're trying to achieve?
What do you this
overlay that you're considering? Just trying to do a multi-
stage overlay and
the perimeter of the building can be a maximum height. It
would have to conform
to the building slope that we've talked about the 35 degree
and so the fifth
story could be a 58 feet but it would only be a percentage
of the whole thing
couldn't get bigger would be pretty much what they have
proposed and then the
amenity center would be at 70 and be it has to be within
the 35 and then it has
to be the size that they're talking about that the building
can't grow out
to the 35 it's pretty much capped at the 48 feet sloping at
35 and then the
square footage that they have a fifth five story is capped
and then the square
footage at the essentially 70 foot would be capped by a
square footage number as
well that they can't exceed so the building can't get
bigger than what
they've proposed and shown. But we would be looking at
something four stories or
higher. On the perimeter. Well in the middle though it
would be higher. The
amenity center whatever that small amount is in the park
and garage.
Approximately 80,000. Can we do percentages? 10% in the top
and
he's calculating a percentage now for the story. Okay. Okay
. I go ahead and
start to make the motion and then fill in the percentages.
Can we do that? So we
can get going?
Okay. Well can we do a friendly amendment once we get the
percentages or not?
And then gives us how much can be at 58 and how much can be
at 70?
No we take the footprint of the entire building which is
this entire
footprint and then we're reducing basically that right
there.
Hey Lee. I'm gonna go ahead and get started with motion if
you guys can get
the percentage on the 58 foot and then the final percentage
hopefully by the
time we get the motion out we can put the numbers in. Okay
after a lot of
discussion and clarifying the notice and I had made some
comments about my
feelings about where we stood and the facts that we have
and so I was going to
make a motion and I am going to make a motion to rezone the
1.3 acres from DR2
to DCG so the entire three acre site would be DCG and based
on what the
current heights are that they can do and the DR2 I'm going
to put an overlay over
the entire site on the perimeter of the building to be 48
feet. So on the
perimeter of the building it cannot be taller than 48 feet.
For the next overlay
it will have to be within the 35 degree slope that's in our
design criteria. That
next staggered cap would be at 58 feet. It would continue
on the 35 degree slope
up to a maximum height of 70 feet and I'd like the
percentage that you need
for the 70 and the percentage that you need for the 58 foot
height of your
building.
Is that good enough here or do we need the actual two
numbers to put in there
for the percentage? Okay.
For the purposes of giving the applicant the opportunity to
get the
numbers I want to go ahead and do this and explain that
what trying to do is
to within the staggered and even limit within those stag
gers even more the
square footage of what they do so they can't build a larger
building it will be
inside and it will be a smaller amount at 58 and then
whatever the small amount
they need for the amenity center. So we get the numbers we
'll put those in here
at 58 and 70 foot and that's my motion and Commissioner R
oussel. Thank you
chair. The motion is not done. I was actually wanting to
officially second
this but I want to say a couple things before I went on
record with a second.
First it's 1125 at night and so I appreciate everyone
staying here and
listening to us discuss and listening to fellow citizens
talk and it's it's most
helpful to the Commission to actually have individuals from
the community come
out and speak and so I thank you for that and those who
have party already
left and fell asleep I thank them as well for staying as
long as possible.
Given that the lower the two zoning's here the DCG and the
DR2 the lower the
two zoning's DR2 allows for 45 foot high structure I feel
that the chairs motion
to limit the perimeter of the entire structure to the
basically the DR2
level give three feet is a reasonable solution to what's
been presented. I feel
that there is a unique character on the east and west of
this of this property
in the West Oak and the Oak Hickory district. I do feel
that this little
peninsula is kind of on its own and in a lot of ways kind
of forgotten in terms
of maintenance if you drive on that I don't think the roads
are that great the
structures there are dilapidated in a lot of ways and so I
feel like someone
coming in and maybe revitalizing it although it's not the
perfect solution I
feel like it is a move forward to have that property start
contributing to the
neighborhood hopefully in a productive way and so I say all
that to say I
appreciate your feedback I understand that you don't want
it in so so many ways
but I feel it's a it's it's a good move for the overall
city and then with that
I would charge Earl Escobar personally to look at traffic
and infrastructure
because I feel like in my mind the biggest issue of this
going in is the
impact on the thoroughfares out I know just from experience
Congress is the
quickest way down to Carroll so if you're at scripture to
get to Carroll
the quickest way is Congress and that is a quiet
neighborhood street and so I
don't I don't know the future of scripture but I just want
to make sure
that the roads are being redone and rebuilt and maybe even
expanded to make
sure that the traffic flow that this would create and
trying to get to Kroger
wherever else would be hopefully mitigated to surrounding
neighbors and
with that I second the motion before open for discussion if
you all had
opportunity to get your percentage
five story 70% which includes the parking garage and then
the amenity space
call it 15% so 15% at 70 what was the percentage on the 58
to 5 story parking
garage 70% 70 yes and those are all inside the 35 degree
slope okay from the
perimeter looking at your building 46 four story building
the interior portion
of it as it comes inside from Street View you won't see
those will stay
inside the 35 degree slope yes the residential proximity
slope okay
perfect okay we have a first and a second and open the
floor for discussion
Commissioner Beck thank you chair and I appreciate your
efforts to get this down
to what you consider more reasonable size but I still can't
go along with it I to
me it seems like a sellout I think what the neighborhood is
asking is for
something much less three stories is probably the limit I
would go on that I
would have a hard time voting on this just simply because
this isn't really
where we wanted to go it may seem like a good compromise
but to me it's it's I
don't see the neighborhood buying into this at all and
feeling like we sold out
on them so I would vote no on this Commissioner Ellis thank
you chair and I
appreciate the efforts of everyone to my concern is you
know an overlays in place
to protect the area and trying to write this after being at
a meeting for six
plus hours now is dangerous not only for the city but even
for the developer
trying to you know willy-nilly numbers like that and and
and and so no I'm I
can't support it Commissioner Tyler thank you chair yeah I
should have the same concerns this is you know the this
doesn't really change
the the scale or mass of the building 70% at 58 feet
basically 60 feet that's
you know basically three-quarters you know is still going
to be much taller
than anything else around it's going to dwarf the two-story
apartments that are
right next door it's going to be you know a lot more
massive than the
apartments across the street it's still going to cast that
shadow you know in
December noon day Sun all the way across scripture and and
I do think it doesn't
fit the context and I don't know what overlay we could put
on you know
something like a straight 45 foot overlay aiming for about
three maybe a
short four stories but I don't think that the developer
would be amenable to
that and so so I can't I can't even think of an overlay
that would work and
trying to trying to write it right now at 1130 at night
also isn't good so for
those reasons I really think we need to at this point I
think the only only
thing we can do is deny and if they're if if the developer
comes up with the
solution between now and City Council and City Council can
take into you know
into consideration the context and the concern of the
neighborhood then they
can override or denial but trying to write it at midnight
it's not going to
work okay well I put a motion out and I'm gonna be calling
for a vote on it
and the last thing I'm gonna say is as servant on this
Commission for a long
time like yourself we had a project similar to this on Fry
Street and I
think they wanted an extra two feet and it didn't go and so
now we have a
project that's even farther away they can build a 45 foot
tall building on it
and they can build a hundred foot tall on portion of it and
I think sometimes
when we have opportunities to do something even though it
is late this
has been talked about now for two weeks and we've all had
discussions about it
and we're gonna take action on it one way or the other
tonight and it will move
forward and then we will have had our opportunity to do
something with it and
then they will move forward with whatever they choose to do
with their
project that's why I've made the motion that I have I know
there are neighbors
that do not want it and also recognize that the people that
own the property
by right can build what they've shown us that they can
build and so for those
reasons I think it's a good compromise to try to maintain
as close as we can on
the exterior of the building of what they can do and be
somewhat of a
compromise on that particular site and so with that I'm
going to call for a
vote on the motion that is stated and we'll see where we
end up this evening
I'll call for a vote on the board
the motion will fail five to two
Commissioner Tyler I move we recommend denial to City
Council Commissioner Beck
question first so the option of doing another type of
overlay that keeps us
below three stories is probably you think is gonna hurt us
more than help us
sorry are you asking below the dr2 well I understand I have
to keep it at the
yard yeah 45 again my concern is to protect this area down
the road and if
we deny and it goes to council yeah I'll miss her I but I
can't hear you okay my
my concern is to protect this area in the long term that's
why I wanted to try
and create an overlay that would keep it at a minimum for a
long time it's not
permanent there's probably some other things we can do down
the road but if we
deny tonight and it goes to council then there's that risk
that this thing could
get built anyway and I'm just trying to avoid that so I
guess I'm just asking
the question is it worth the risk of voting denial or
considering a motion
for an overlay that's equivalent to dr2 I can't basically
recommend which motion
you should make but I can clarify the initial we took a
recess just to
discern what the notification parameters were and based on
that it was evident
that because of the over notification that an overlay
district can be placed
on the entire three acres even though the request before
you is for an
application for a change in zoning for the sudden portion
of the property which
I believe is 1.3 acre acres that being said it you know if
if you're looking at
this protection overlay district and you're looking at
parameters that have
consistency you can't go below the base zoning of that
district as legal
indicated so if you're looking at the parameters or the
development criteria
associated with the dr2 zoning district then for instance
you could visit the
building height you could visit the setbacks now the only
additional
opportunity you have with the overlay district opposed to
the physical
parameters is looking at enhanced screening or landscaping
mechanisms as
well so that's what you have before you is to provide a
recommendation on the
on the request itself was it which is a change in zoning
and one of the elements
that was brought up by the Commission as a discussion point
was if there is an
overlay district what does it encompass or what is the what
are the meets and
bounds of it and what are the associated hard criteria that
can be established
with it just to clarify for you to Commissioner back they
have the ability
to put 45 45 foot tall building throughout the entire three
acres
currently so your overlay if you put it at 45 would it be
of no effect because
they can do that now okay that helps thank you and I'll
trust the
Commissioner taters judgment and second the motion we have
a first and a second
for denial
any any discussion none well I'll make comment and then we
're a call for a vote
I think we had an opportunity to do something tonight and
we'll see what
happens I don't agree with the now because I think the
opportunity for us
to do some restrictions on it will go out the window and we
'll lose the
ability to have some say in what this project is so because
of that I will not
support the demand denial and now have a couple other
people that would like to
speak Commissioner Hudson yeah briefly out of respect for
the next item I'll be
super brief again I reiterate if they if they it's zoned
what it is that's at our
hands if they they had an opportunity to tailor-make it as
well as we had an
opportunity to tailor-make it I'm going to side with the
people that live in
that neighborhood even that aside I'm going to side with
the majority of the
people that have spoken against this and I'm going to go
with my common sense
that looks at it and says it doesn't fit and I'm going to
go with the fact
that I've noticed very little traction and I and I and I
take a dissenting
opinion to the other property reference on on Frost Street
they didn't want to
match the parking requirements was the at issue there they
had by right the
opportunity to do that and and Commissioner Roselle points
out they
came back with the exact same plan six months ago and I
think we're at this
impasse as well where it does not fit it's I'm looking for
someone to say that
they're going to be in an apartment they're going to build
an apartment it's
an investment and so you're going to have to pay a premium
but you're going to
get a premium back and that is you like you don't like
those two story
apartments go by those but you don't want to go by those
because those are
costs those cost more in my humble opinion and and so I
just think where
we're at a point where I'm not going to ignore the citizens
that live in a
district for the betterment of a profit of someone that
doesn't live in the city
I'm just not going to I just can't in in my right mind do
that because that's
that's that's not right and so just as much as you point
out that we had an
opportunity to make an adjustment I'm so excited that we
send a clearer message
in my humble opinion that when I get a narrative that says
either this or that
I'm not going to respond well to that and that's just and
and and that's that
may be that may be something that I need to work on but
that's where I stand and
I and I feel supported in that and that we had citizen
comments that picked up
on the same thing so I didn't stand alone in my perception
of reading that
document so I look forward to this and I think it it I don
't look at as an
opportunity missed on our end I think it is consistent with
how we approach
things and and I think it is encouraging Commissioner Ose
llo thank you chair so I
just as I'm trying to think through what the vote of denial
that we just had the
implications of it and now this vote means and it's coming
to they could
start after plats get done to build three acres at 45 feet
and what the
chair put forth was let's let him build 48 feet and let's
let a fifth story be
allowed with a setback so it's not even that visual from a
walking area yet it
seems like the Commission by voting a denial to this is not
okay with a setback
for a fifth story but we are okay in them building 60 feet
70 feet 80 feet 90
feet 100 feet on the property so it doesn't compute fully
with a motion to
say we're gonna limit perimeters at 48 feet we're gonna
force them to set back a
fifth story so it's really hard to see that's not okay but
the Commission is
perfectly fine saying 45 feet on the dr2 perfect and we're
okay with putting a
hundred feet on the DCG it just doesn't seem to make sense
and I feel like the
chair put forth the motion that was a reasonable compromise
to have some kind
of control over the cap of this project because in all
honesty they might not
build a hundred stories maybe they don't want that in
portfolio but why wouldn't
they build 60 70 feet they can make that probably look
pretty for their portfolio
and a denial tonight would give them incentive to even
start that process
even sooner and additionally we've talked about the
neighbors coming out and I
appreciate them taking time to come out but we had one
individual from county
property speak we had one individual from Misty wood lane
which is several
miles away the closest I can see was on Congress Street in
opposition but no one
from that block opposed tonight no one from the 200 feet
came out tonight and
so yes there has been vocal opposition from it but it's
been from Oak Street
that come out for any project near campus because of
traffic concerns and
so I want to validate individuals coming out and speaking
tonight but I also want
to understand that the proximity to this that has been
spoken about tonight hasn't
really been there and so I'm kind of astonished by the
rationalization of
voting to deny this when it produces an outcome that's less
controlled than what
was just voted against and so I'm certainly voting to not
approve a denial
of this based on my desire to have some control over the
project being presented
Commissioner Ellis thank you chair all I'll what I'd like
to add to that
Commissioner Oselle is that what was put forth before us
with with the overlay
didn't address the concern of density and what this project
brings to the area
it just it just talked about the aesthetics which is one
thing but density
was a huge problem the traffic the amount of people that's
going to bring
it that area and what it's going to do to the rest of the
area and then also to
address the 200 and 500 feet decisions that we make affect
more than that in
the city and just because we didn't get those people here
who talked about it
the people who did come out they do have a right because
that will affect them
and how we all travel through that area I absolutely agree
it was just
mentioned on the Commission that neighbors have come out to
speak in
opposition and I think it's worth contextualizing who those
neighbors are
and again to the point I feel I've already made is in terms
of density we
deny this we've provided them ability to be more dense than
it seems like
you desire because they can go higher up and produce more
beds more units more
density and further I charged Earl and I hate to keep
bringing him out by name I
apologize but there needs to be some infrastructure in
there I agree that the
traffic and roads I 100% agree with you that needs to be
addressed but I don't
know if that's cause to change from a 48 foot cap or
letting them build 100 feet
any other comments or Commissioner Tyler thank you chair so
to address your
concerns Commissioner Rozelle regarding regarding trying to
work out a solution
here the solution that that was proposed in the overlay is
exactly the thing that
the neighborhood did not want it's exactly that no we have
gotten letters
from property owners directly across the street they were
in our last meeting and
I'm sure they're somewhere in the record and this this 70%
at 58 feet and 15% at
48 feet and 15% at 70 feet that that isn't any protection
that's that's
exactly what the plan is so so there isn't any there isn't
any like benefit
from to the neighborhood from that overlay which is exactly
what the
developer said they were going to build and drew the
picture of they're also
already limited by the the proximity the residential
proximity rule so they can't
even start at 48 feet they have to start at 46 feet 10 feet
off the property line
so even though it was a world our overlay is weaker than
our laws and then
to go to a hundred feet tall which they could do they start
running into fire
protection issues when they get above about 60 feet so the
feasibility of them
building a hundred foot tower to punish the neighborhood or
to make their profit
is is pretty unlikely so I I wish we could have crafted an
overlay that that
addressed the concerns of context and size and scale but if
you're across the
street or you're a hundred feet down scripture that 70 foot
portion of the
building is going to be very visible it's going to be lo
oming above the
street so it we're not the 70 foot overlay with the 50 foot
step down so
forth isn't protecting anything I think maybe something
like a 45 foot flat
overlay might be amenable to the neighborhood at the edge
like just
barely acceptable but that would absolutely not be
acceptable to the
developer and if we try to do something like that at
midnight you know on a
Wednesday night it's we may as well just not do anything
and let something get
worked out on the way to City Council when they have time
to do research and
do the math and figure out exactly what compromise they can
reach and bring it
forth to the actual deciders on this at City Council that's
why I think a
denial now is better than a really kind of hastily crafted
overlay I appreciate
thank you that information correct me if I'm wrong it's my
understanding that
this zoning request is not tied to a site plan so the
overlay would actually
protect what gets built. Commissioner Tyler. That is true
but it it doesn't
give any benefit to the neighborhood over the proposal in
fact it actually
gives them a little wiggle room which you know we generally
do in overlays
because we don't want to whenever we reach a negotiated
solution we don't
want to accidentally have something that was one foot too
low and just kills a
project that we have negotiated to the end but we haven't
negotiated anything
here we've basically designed an overlay that lets them do
exactly what they want
I'm gonna make a final comment and then we're gonna call
for a vote and get on
to our next item I don't think it was exactly what they
wanted I think they
came and did a neighborhood meeting with a project that
they built in Waco they
did this project that was farther setbacks from the street
they did it
with relief with setbacks that were as far as 15-60 feet
from the back of the curb
versus right up on the curb so I don't think it's correct
to sit here and say
that they've made no compromise they didn't listen to the
neighborhood they
didn't respond and they just built what they did I saw a
very different building
facade what they showed versus what they originally showed
at the neighborhood
meetings the second final thing I will say is that the
property that we're
talking about this the historic and all this stuff is a
vacant assisted living
center that has been vacant for many years a vacant
pharmacy building on the
corner there are old apartments all around it and they're
talking about
building a building that's probably at least a forty
million dollar building in
our city they chose to come build it here they're gonna pay
taxes on it
they're gonna pay impact fees on it they're gonna pay
traffic impact fees so
go to support all the roads that people say we need to get
the roads fixed and
people keep bringing projects to our city like this and
this commission says
no and then we turn around and say we don't have any money
to fix the streets
we don't have any money to do this and these are the people
that write the
checks to fix that stuff and so with that I'm gonna make
that's my final
comment I don't agree with the motion we're making I'm
gonna call for a vote
on it and then it can move on to City Council so with that
I'm gonna call for a
vote on the board and we'll move forward and get on to the
next people here
the motion to deny carries five to two
just a second I have a request from a commissioner to the
applicant and then
we're gonna move on to our next item if you could bring
this project on Stella
Street or Eagle there wouldn't be any overlays there wouldn
't be any
resistance and I know that you're challenged by where the
what land is
available for sale right now but this isn't we don't want
business in Denton
this is not on that's not in this exact location I have got
a conflict of
interest in regards to item 5a I own property across the
street or an owner
ownership interest in and real property across the street
so at this time I'm
going to recuse myself for a conflict of interest on this
item and I'm going to
turn the meeting over to vice-chair Devin Taylor for like
this item and also
thank you all thank you chair
so our next agenda item is listed as item 5a case number fr
16 - 0023 a hold a
public hearing and consider a request by Stephen and Karen
Hale for approval of a
final replant of lots one and two block B of Hale Estates
do we have a
presentation on this yes absolutely we have Haley who can
go through the
proposed replant the subdivision of a lot into two lots of
record
good evening so this is a fr 1623 it's a replant of the H
ale Estates lot one and
two of block B this was originally plotted as part of the
Montecito
subdivision believe it was originally lot 13 of block B and
so the request is
to subdivide this into two residential lots the zoning for
the properties in our
two and with this a lot two is encumbered by a significant
amount of
drainage easements floodplain there's some ESA on the
property as well that is
all encompassed in the easements that you see here and
there any other
questions I can answer those at this time
I don't see any questions for staff would the applicant
like to present
thank you commissioners and thank y'all for staying up here
late working with
us on this thing we were here a couple of weeks ago I
thought I would just
write out my remarks this time so I can go a lot quicker
instead of him and and
hauling around I could did last time and we can get through
this thing if you
just so I apologize for just reading it but when we ended
our session two weeks
ago I thought we were at a point where there were no
technical challenges to
our application but as some of my neighbors had appeared
and challenged on
other grounds we agreed to table the matter until tonight
as I explained at
the last meeting we were wanting to subdivide our three and
a half acres
into two lots so we can sell the lot to the east and being
lot to to our to our
neighbor Kevin Nelms who lives across from us on El Paso
one of the other
reasons I want to sell to Kevin is because he asked me a
long time ago if
I ever wanted to sell the property to give him right of
first refusal which I
did in this case and that's and that's why I'm honoring
that most of a lot too
is in is in a pond stream bed and damn and all of a lot too
has been designated
as floodplain pardon me in the course of this replatting
Kevin and his family
live in the first house downstream from the pond as it
flows through the dam and
as such he has the greatest vested interest of anyone in
the area in the
maintenance and stability of the dam as I've tried to
explain my greatest duty
is not to the people who live in Montecito I'm sorry as
they all live
upstream and will not be adversely affected should the dam
break my primary
duty is to those who live downstream and especially to
those who live in
Shadowbrook to the Southville sale that's not only my
opinion but it's also
the opinion of the TCEQ the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality my
primary concern is with their safety and security and I
believe Kevin is the most
reliable person to take on that task at the last hearing
there were questions as
to whether subdividing our lot was allowed by the Montecito
restrictive
covenants paragraph 8 of the restrictions which deals with
subdividing
of lots requires the replatted lot have a minimum area of
one acre and 150 feet
of frontage and our replat meets those requirements looking
at the plate of
Montecito it appears that out of the 60 odd lots there are
only about five or six
lots that would be able to subdivide within these
restrictions those being
those lots at the north and the south ends of Montecito one
another point on
the as to what constitutes frontage our house fronts on
Santa Monica this house
not this house this property would front on El Paseo I was
unsure about that and
so I contacted a civil engineer who handles these kind of
matters all the
time and he assured me that frontage means only to the
nearest public road
roadway or street and also fronting to monitor fronting to
El Paseo El Paseo
this portion of El Paseo that's at the south end of Santa
Monica pardon me at
south end of the Montecito addition was dedicated what is a
dedicated street
within the Montecito dedication I realized that this matter
of restrictive
covenants is not within this board's purview but I want the
board to know
that I did not disregard such matters in filing for this
replat I consulted with
an engineer as well as our survey before filing our
application also since our
last hearing I did meet with two of my neighbors who were
back to who who back
to the pond as we had a very frank discussion as they say
in political
circles I as I explained to them it is my belief that Kevin
more so than any
other owner in the area is the best person to take care of
this property to
ensure the safety of those downstream many of those who are
here tonight who
are in opposition to our application did I know Kevin Kevin
is here and Kevin's
going to speak by the way I suggest that when they see him
and his crews out
there out there working they'd be good neighbors and stop
an offer to lend a
hand again it's my understanding that our application is
mature requirements so
I asked the board to prove our application do you have any
questions of
me at this time it's getting late thank you very much
questions thank you and this is a public hearing if anybody
would like to speak
this is a public hearing if anybody I will open the public
hearing at this
time if anybody would like to speak please fill out a blue
card I have
several cards here at this time I will call on Kevin Nelms
to speak please state
your name and address when you reach the podium
I'm Kevin Nelms I live at 3403 Shadowbrook Court in Denton
across
street from Steve and I met with a few of the neighbors in
the last few days
and some of them were concerned that I wanted to tear the
dam down which I
don't I'd like to fix the dam they it's on a beautiful lake
and all the lots
are beautiful except one it's the one right across the
street from me that I
look out my window when I eat breakfast and I've got some
pictures if you'd like
to look there's a first one that's the dam and these are
these are logs that
float downstream if you look at the house in the back I
talked that lady
last night and she's she indicated she was for me getting
this place cleaned up
all the other houses are real nice but all the junks got to
go out somewhere
and it all flows over there and then this is on the other
side of the dam
it's kind of a swamp area for mosquitoes it's right across
from my house here's
another picture of the dam getting jammed up this is the
there's a drainage
thing that goes underneath the street to right behind my
house that's it if you
notice there's logs here as Steve said he's seen it where
it's all the way up
to like this area with logs which would flood over the
street the dam has about a
four inch crack there's my tennis shoe there but the four
inch crack down here
and I'm kind of taking a picture straight down on it that
needs repaired
all the trees along the the lake there look like that and
then there's a bunch
of concrete thrown on the other side of the dam that needs
cleaned up and covered
with gravel and concrete there's another one of the trees
on the on the edge of
the lake on the property and then another one and then this
is looking back
from my my window of my house to all these trees that are
dead and all the
piles of things which I would like to clean up because it
looks nice and
there's some more dead trees on the property more dead
trees on the property
and here's another picture of this is the basic main part
of the property
which I could really clean up and make look nice I live on
a basically a zero
lot line house and I have a driveway that enters from the
rear I have a front
yard but my son kind of has nowhere to play so this would
give an area we could
put a basketball court or something over here I have no
intention of building
anything just basically clean it up make it look nice at my
expense and from the
discussion tonight maybe the city doesn't have enough money
to fix up the
dam and I do so and I've got the equipment and I've got the
people to do
it and thank you very much for your consideration we do
have one question
Commissioner Beck thank you by sure thank you sir Kevin for
coming down and
speaking so if I understand you right you have no intention
of letting this
damn deteriorate and any repairs that it would take to keep
it intact will come
out of your own pocket is that correct that's correct okay
have you any offers
from any of the neighbors to help you with this now I had I
had two neighbors
come out come by the lady I showed you her house I think
she came by last night
and then the gentleman next door that lives you know not on
the lake he came
by and then I met Peter I met Peter tonight and he's he
seems to be in
agreement and of course Steve and everybody so that's a
start pardon me
that's a start then that's a start you've got yeah some
people on your side
yeah okay every I've lived in it since 92 and I took a 50-
acre lot that was
really terrible is I realized my Hill roads not the nicest
looking place in
the world but this place was really a showplace when I got
done with it and
my house is well kept and I have another house that I ran
out over on the north
side of town and I keep it well and I've got other houses
in other countries and
I keep them well so I just like something nice that's all
all right thank
you sir okay any other questions no thank you okay thank
you our next speaker
is Douglas Ebersole to be followed by John Wright
I'd like to just clarify a couple of things that I heard in
the work session
about the covenants the covenant has an amendment covenants
the restrictions
were written in 1965 when Bob Nichols developed this place
and this along here
this line is block a all those lots here and the rest of
this over here is block
B and C D&E the amendment was written in 1966 and it was
clarified item number
eight and what it says it says except for lots and block a
except for all
these lots here no lot shall be resubdivided into no lot
sub is
resubdivided into that's old legal language for just subd
ivided the neck and
the next restriction says it continues it says nor shall
any dwelling be erected
or placed on any portion of any lot having a frontage of
less than 150 feet
and less than one acre the reason he did that is because
these lots originally
were platted the same size as these over here okay they're
all the same size you
can see down here these two lots are still the same size
but lots across 11
number 18 what he did is he turned 11 lots into 18 over
here in other words he
and you can see right here he halves the size of the loss
and that was because
these these were not selling over here and so he had those
lots almost all of
them and then that's how he moved the project and those
sold so this
restriction except for lots and block a no lot shall be
subdivided into nor shall
any dwelling be erected then it continues on after that
lots and block a may be
subdivided provided said lot shall have frontage of not
less than 100 feet and
25,000 squeak feet an area so that's why he did that he
wrote that in there so he
could subdivide those lots but that doesn't apply to Mont
icello the red to
block B C D and E that that exception only applies to block
a so what that
says is no lots can be subdivided into that and that the
whole place is
developed out now and this ignoring our covenants which
that best a bad
precedent for subdivision in there when it is against our
our covenants I've
heard a lot of talk tonight and previous issues about
neighborhood integrity about
character of neighborhoods and there are departments in the
city that are
concerned and talked a lot about neighborhood harmony cohes
iveness
security and character and safety and beauty and what's
happened to Monticello
whereas there are no regard for 52 year old restrictions
that are still valid
it would set a bad precedent and as far as the safety
downstream the last meeting
I tried to talk a little bit about history and the other
thing that was said
in the work session that was I need to clarify is it was
said that there was no
homeless homeless Association I was president of a homeless
Association
right there for 20 years there was and has been a homeless
Association okay and
we have come together over all those years of decades to
keep that dam in
repair we built the whole thing once and then rebuild it
again two or three times
and we have what we have as far as that the concrete below
the dam that's there
purposefully and that was given that that's a suggestion
was later on because
the dam kept washing out underneath it so he said put a
catchment pace in there
a detention pond below that dam to keep it from washing
under so that's why we
put those concrete there it's not junk it's not dumped it's
put there
purposely and that pond which he calls a mosquito nest is a
pond as the catchment
pond so when the water comes over the dam it doesn't wash
underneath it it's
happened and we know before we got that and now that works
and we and those
things are full of concrete those cracks they're on the
outside because we filled
those those two sides and so spillway full of concrete I'm
on my time is up
that's I'm opposed to the I'm opposed to this on principle
because it's violates
our covenants sir could you state your name and address I'm
sorry Doug
Ebersole 3210 Montecito Road thank you
our next speaker is John Wright to be followed by Weaver Mc
Clure is is John
Wright in the audience they might have already gone home at
this late hour they
marked that they did wish to speak in opposition Weaver Mc
Clure is weaver here
to be followed by Michael Doransky
my name is Weaver McClure I live at 3100 Carmel Denton
block C lot 7 I've been
there since 1989 so I've been there about 28 years Doug
said a lot of the
same things that I'm going to go over when I first when I
bought my house and
paid for the house they gave me a deed restrictions and
said you know you have
to follow these and so we've done that and there's been
times where we've had
to come back together to let some of the lot owners there's
a bankers 83 lots in
Montecito understand that they do have deed restriction
have to follow and if
you'll look at that little dot we had somebody move in a
farmhouse and so we
had you know deal with that and that got straightened out
and taken care of so if
you'll look in like in 1965 when the deed restrictions
passed Bob Nichols
course started this and that's the name of the streets
after California but this
lot that's right next to here of the way you're thinking
about replating this
this man that helped write these and signed off on these
deed restrictions
was Mark clearman and so he is not there anymore he almost
passed away there I
guess for his soul is house and left so these deed
restrictions are there and I
know the staff does not have to follow the deed
restrictions I keep hearing
that a lot but I would make a suggestion that anytime you
have anything that's
going to be changed that you put that on top of the form
does this comply with
the deed restriction so everybody will know in the very
beginning I'm very
opposed to this this lot block B lot 13 has been there
since forever that this
addition has been there I really resent changing the name
to a different name so
in the future when this property is resold again that it
will be called
something different than the Montecito edition and far as
dividing it up and
replating it some of the covenants that we have now the
deed restrictions say
that you can't you have to build a resident none of the
laws can be used
but for residents so this property would have to have by
the deed restrictions
would have to have a resident put on it a house and so what
by voting yes for
this what you're putting is all the lot owners now are
going to put in a
position that our only solution is civil litigation and you
know nobody wants to
go there but that that's probably words had it if if you
vote yes on this and
that's about all I got to say any questions I have no
questions at this
time Commissioner Roselle thank you mr. McClure for your
thoughtful presentation
I do have a question that sure it might be reoccurring that
anyone who's
presenting could answer but it seems to me that mr. Hale
has not up kept that
the dam in terms of aesthetics cracks look like there's
rocks in that creek
bed and I don't know even his ability because it's riparian
buffer to do so
okay so that being said we have an individual who has said
that he would
like to bring up the aesthetics of the area within his his
ability I'm trying
to understand if you have an individual who's not doing
that but you have an
individual who now wants to is that not good for the
overall Monticello addition
well not not really because we're gonna have to have
another resident there and
you can't really have a lot without a resident on it
residents on it so my
suggestion in that situation is is that mr. Nims wants the
property by the whole
property and fix the dam and then he then he controls the
whole thing and
stays as one lot which that's where our covenants are you
can't subdivide it
Hank mr. Hale I misrepresented that because the first part
of that says it
can't be subdivided the second part talks about how big the
lot has to be
that you have to have a you know piece of a house on it I
think that's where
we're at and I've looked at this for a long time I've been
on the deed
restrictions committee in the past and so most people
comply we really don't
have much problems nobody wants to go talk to your neighbor
and say look you
know what are you building now without getting approval and
it doesn't fit our
covenants sure everybody got these when they bought the
property so thank you
you bet thank you one more question Commissioner Beck thank
you vice chair
thank you for your comments so am I understand you right
then that whoever
owns that lot where the dam is it's solely their
responsibility to make not
sure about that that part I haven't looked at okay because
I think that's
but if it's on your property I mean like if any of us has a
piece of property I
mean what's on your property here you know that's your deal
and if it's not
where you can take care of it maybe you need to do
something different with the
property well and I agree with that I do but if this
impacts something that the
whole neighborhood benefits from it seems like to put the
onus on him to
take care of something that everybody benefits from well my
suggestion is
there's a lot of people that back up to that in part of the
covenants is
everybody has a right to the waterways or any streams or
anything that's there
so it backs up to the property so really we ought to
probably get those people to
say look you know we'll pay for it I mean even maybe as a
deed restriction
committee we put in fees and things to cover that does
anybody propose it not
yet this is the first time this has really come up I didn't
know about this
till about three weeks ago okay okay thank you sir okay our
next speaker is
Michael Doransky to be followed by Jim Keffer and please
state your name and
address for the record my name is Michael Doransky I'm at
2111 Montecito
for what I've heard tonight the council cares about the
majority of the citizens
in the history of the city and I think that this case of
this is just as well
in this neighborhood as this neighborhood is also 50 years
old and
just as much care that was made for the historic area this
area is just as is
just as old by standards to be historic even though it
doesn't have that
designation and as people people speaking tonight do live
in this
neighborhood they're not from around the county they're not
from random places
these are people who actually do live on these streets and
from we left off two
weeks ago you know there was basically one or two
homeowners that are in favor
of this piece and for the project of subdividing their
property and a couple
weeks later we're probably still at that same point and
basically I know that you
all instructed us to say hey you need to have a neighbor
the seller should have a
a hosted meeting with the neighborhood well they didn't do
that in fact
basically some of the neighbors reached out to him and
begged for a meeting for
this Frank meeting I guess as he was saying to typically
you know get their
own input and he simply just took the suggestion just
basically didn't do
anything with it and maybe the reason why it is because
maybe the properties
already changed hands monetarily but just not on paper but
some of the
neighbors around the lake did beg for the meeting and they
did get one and at
this meeting for I understand it was basically you know
trying to work out
some sort of compromise but that really didn't occur it
basically was saying hey
you guys better get on board or there could be you know
there could be
consequences to the sort and basically I wasn't at this
meeting but that's just
basically from what I've heard from the other pieces of it
and back to the
meaning of before is hey if you don't like this project I
got a much worse
project for you if you want to get on board with if you don
't get on board with
this one that's kind of how I'm taking it as well and he
knows maybe he drains
the lake takes out the dam to punish us all for those
pieces and you know being
an insurance in those pieces flooding could be an issue it
could cause damage
downstream just to make us all pay for us standing up for
what we don't want or
what we believe in and for I understand the neighbors were
interested in trying
to see what the price was of this property to cheap out if
we could match
the price and then make it more of a HOA or community
property that we all would
be responsible for for this piece of property but for
whatever reason that
was not something that was that was entertaining instead
you know basically
they told us that hey it's gonna cost fifty to a hundred
grand for this piece
I've seen no estimates I don't know if you all have the
estimates for this fifty
to a hundred grand but basically I think that's just more
of a scare tactic as
well to try to get people on board of please let me do this
because it's gonna
cost a lot of money to clean out some dead trees was the
guys already willing
to do I don't know why he has to own the property to do if
he's just want to be a
good neighbor he could do it himself as well as people have
said hey the
neighbors were willing to help and get together but again
this is the way we've
we're handling it I guess you would say and basically with
a requirement I would
say if this is gonna happen if it's gonna cost fifty to a
hundred why don't
we just put a stipulation that there's a hundred thousand
dollars put into an
escrow account and basically it has to spend a minimum of a
fifty thousand
dollars over a course of a year if this is a true number of
what it takes to
repair this dam or engineering reports because as it is
from I've talked to
people the dam that's washed out hasn't even those numbers
in all the years
over all the time but basically those are the numbers that
were given to us
so to me it'd be easier just to deny this piece given that
basically only one
or two people are for it and the rest of the neighborhood
is against it and being
that many people here seem to take value in what the
neighborhood wants and what
our input is that is my input is basically is the majority
of us do not
want that except for the people who are benefiting from
this piece financially
Jim Keffer is our next speaker to be followed by Diane H
uber so Jim Jim has
left he did mark that he is in opposition Diane will be
followed by
Jason Thomas I'm sorry yeah I can move you down the list
Jason Thomas is Jason Thomas here and then to be followed
by Cortland
Christopherson good March 9th to you
I'm at 3400 Montecito I'm actually the property that abuts
right back up to the
other side of Steve Hale and a couple people have said that
we've had you know
other neighbors have had conversations with Steve I
actually did have the
conversation with Steve so Steve and I talked a little bit
we actually talked a
couple of times he expressed a lot of concerns about
liability of the dam
which is totally understandable I understand the situation
we did also
talk about possible resolutions to the sale if the
committee is saying you know
you're absolutely is going to approve this because there
are two stipulations
to meet and it's been met so that's kind of what we talked
about so when I was
talking to him I just said look you know we are all
interested in protecting the
dam and one of the things that I heard in the planning
session earlier was
something the council was saying about the easement of the
waterways and stuff
that the dam cannot be affected in any way shape or form by
whoever owns a
property now or is there some is there a way you can repeat
what you said in the
planning session and not have it a basically affect my time
with regards to
the actual dam and doing anything to affect the dam
specifically on the dam
we determined that it was in place at the time of the
subdivision being put
into place so it it impacted or contributed to the
mitigation for the
drainage on the subdivision and it looks like a lot of the
street drainage goes
into that particular area so to remove something like that
you would have to go
through the city because it would affect all of the
drainage on the property and
you would have to show some sort of other alternative
mitigation downstream
in order to get an approval on something like that in
addition there is a riparian
buffer there because of the waterway so anything along the
perimeter of the
waterway would be considered a protected area that would
require a permit in
order to remove it so at any point that he tries to remove
any of that
vegetation around the waterway or if there is a potential
attempt to remove
the dam that would all go through the city and we would
have to approve it the
reason why I was asking is not to say that you know mr. Nel
ms would do that
because obviously he's you know wants to improve the land
but as far as being
owner of the property that butts right to it I have no
guarantee of any way
shape or form so believe me if you purchase the land and
that's what they
wanted to do then that's great and he's got good intentions
but the next buyer
who gets sold to what I am trying to figure out is how do
we protect my
investment that I made I'm very new to the community
probably newest member
besides Brandon and you know we're making that investment
to keep that
that whole neighborhood up and going and obviously mr. Nel
ms seems wants to do
the same thing I see the same one so you know my concern is
purely protection of
our neighborhood so if that means you know not approving
the subdivision now
of the lot because of certain restrictions and the deeds
then that's
fine if that exact means that we table this matter because
I wasn't actually
physically notified via certified mail even though I am on
the tax rolls and
been for 16 months I got no certified letter I work at home
every day my wife
works at home every day we never got we never got the
letter so I didn't find
out about this until about eight days ago and during that
eight days I've had
conversations with the neighbors so today my my perspective
to you guys would
be this needs to be tabled and let us have a discussion I
would actually like
to have a discussion with mr. Helms you know and just say
look you know what is
what is the plan how can we help I have neighbors that have
continually come to
us and say look we can we want to support the cleanup of
the dam everybody
knows I think that's the common you know factor of this
whole situation nobody
wants to let that thing go away the city can't let it go
away without permits
there's a lot of obstruction there so I just want to make
sure my point is heard
to the council that I wasn't notified I'd love the chance
to have this table to
discuss some really clean opportunity to fix the fix the
dam together as a whole
neighborhood that's my position I do have a question
sure Commissioner Sullivan thank you what is the status of
the HOA is there
one does anybody pay fees is it official unofficial I do
not know that there's
other folks who have been in the neighborhood a lot longer
who have had
more control over that I can't answer that closing closing
you didn't have to
pay HOA fees or anything at that point okay that's since
you were newer you
might have encountered that or not so okay thank you very
much appreciate so
our next speaker is Cortland Christopherson to be followed
by Diane
Huber I would like to clarify the matter I am
Coraline Christopherson I'm an attorney with the schnall
offering and file on
Texas I do by happenstance actually have lived in this area
I lived
essentially across the street or up the street from mr. Mc
Clure for the majority
of my life and before that I lived in a high view circle so
I'm very familiar
with this area I was brought in on very short notice on
this matter
last Thursday got a somewhat panic call from miss Cassandra
Cornell who was
concerned about the impact of the property values and the
potential
ramifications for this neighborhood if this subdivision was
to go through in
the midst of trying to somehow learn more about this matter
I've kind of been
stonewalled a little bit I was not able to get in touch
with the department I'm
sure you all are very busy and sounds like the matter
before this was rather
large I'm sure you're working on very hard but nonetheless
I'll never get in
touch with them and then I also tried to get a copy of the
underlying
application documents and the master list of all people
that notice was sent
to I was informed that that was an open records request and
they had at least
ten days to respond to that so I haven't been able to make
a fully-fledged
investigation in this matter I don't think that as such
this commission
should approve this application just for the Mac the the
fact that they tabled
this discussion at the last hearing and in the intervening
period more homeowners
have discovered that this is going on a number of
homeowners themselves have not
received notice I know Jason said that he didn't get notice
Brandon also
mentioned they did get they did not get notice they were
both on the tax rolls
in 2015 and they've had tax assessments for 2016 and they
've also had certified
notice of previous proceedings in this matter leave Brandon
filed an
application for some amendment for this court and they
received in that matter
but they didn't get in this one so I don't know what the
issue was but
there's a defect in the notice I believe and I'd like to
just point out to the
court that I think the city attorney stated well that this
application is
final and not appeal so that the only remedy for homeowners
in the subdivision
from now is suit and whether that is against mr. Nelms or
against mr. Hale
will frankly not matter much it will be a time-consuming
and expensive procedure
which could easily be avoided I believe that this
Commission should grant
another continuance in this matter for a significantly
longer period in order for
members of this community and mr. Hale and mr. Nelms to
work together to find a
mutually beneficial decision and to remedy the situation
you know whether
that needs to be through a deed amendment or you know
mutual leases on
all parties that that remains to be decided but as of now I
think that this
panel had a made a very smart decision 15 days ago or so
and they noticed that
there was a bunch of conflict here and they made a very
smart decision to push
it and I would say that this Commission should push this
matter again for
another longer period in order to find a solution that does
not entail future
litigation in terms of I guess the professor from earlier
but yeah I think
but I'd like to say that this Commission's stamina is very
impressive I
think this is coming along by eight hour workday and now
coming up on eight hours
here between this hearing and the earlier meeting so very
impressive and
thank you for your service thank you oh we do have one
question
Commissioner Hudson yes sir stuff Christopherson Christoph
erson thank you
Christopherson mr. Christopherson I'd be interested to get
your take on this body
how do you connect this body and so understanding the
decision to me bait
understanding the the the kind of the parameters because
regardless of if
you've been able to receive the documents you you need the
charters
online and then kind of the the codes are online it doesn't
really how do you
connect those two like our option to ignore our call or not
execute our call
versus a deed restriction which doesn't come into our pur
view you know I think
that's a very fair question I know that deed restriction
and interpretation is
not under the jurisdiction of this panel but overarching
ways I think this court
can take it into account in deciding whether something
should be approved or
not in the fact that while while this Commission cannot
enforce them or you
know amend alter or evoke them they can say you can see the
ramifications of
this matter you know you approve this what happens well
they're left without a
remedy so they got to go somewhere they're gonna go to the
court you can
prevent that you can stop that from giving them an
opportunity just kind of
take a step back cool down and think with level head rather
than rushing from
step to step to step trying to get this application this
information this notice
throwing it all together it's it's been a very rushed a few
days all right thank
you sir
Diane Huber Huber to be followed by Cassandra Cornell I'm
dr. Diane Huber
and I reside at 3310 my seat oh there's so many things
floating around I'd like
to try to pull some things together thank you for allowing
me to speak first
I want to address you Commissioner back you asked had
anyone approached mr.
Nelms about offering to put money up and last night I went
and I knocked on mr.
Nelms his door and I did agree that his view of the lake is
is not as attractive
as others and I offered to buy the lot to pay for the
complete reconstruction
of the dam to take care of any cost he said no he had it
all taken care of but
I did offer the other thing I want to commend you is when
you made this
statement earlier this evening that we needed to protect
our neighborhood
heritage over 25 years ago I had the privilege of living on
Montecito and
raising four sons who enjoyed playing in this lake today I
have the great
privilege because of that neighborhood heritage to watch my
12 grandchildren
play in that lake I have heard said tonight that you don't
have control over
deed restrictions however according to your code you must
divide by Texas code
2 1 2 and if we look at Texas code 2 1 2 point 0 1 4
regarding replating without
vacating preceding plat you have the authority a replat of
a subdivision or
part of a subdivision may be recorded and is controlling
over the preceding
plat without vacation of that plat if the replat one is
signed and acknowledged
two is approved in a public hearing and three does not
attempt to amend or
remove any covenant or restrictions I believe the Montecito
area is covered by
deed restrictions that you've seen tonight that have been
amended and I
believe that this Commission does have the right the
opportunity and the
responsibility to deny this request thank you thank you our
last the last
card I have is for Cassandra Cornell if anybody else would
like to speak please
fill out a blue card hi I'm Cassandra Cornell at 3200 Mont
ecito thank you very
much for PNC for staying so late and also for granting us
the two weeks to
try to digest and take care of this issue as neighbors when
we last spoke we
were asked to work together as neighbors to find a solution
and during that time
it came to our attention that the Thomases who would join
roughly at the
dam area were one of the many people who did not receive a
letter in the meeting
before this you posted how many people got letters or said
they didn't get
letters but we didn't see it for this particular group we
've heard from
countless amounts of people that are opposed to this and
have expressed that
we would like to share that with everyone who's in
attendance and who is
listening the Thomas's have lived there for 16 months and
they have received
letters from for other city issues regathering other
properties recently and
three and also three months ago but they did not receive a
letter regarding their
own issue we also have come up with several ideas to solve
what we were told
was the issue of the dam liability but we were not given
the opportunity and
were informed that the seller and buyer have already
completed this transaction
with the sellers being the real estate attorney and realtor
and that was that
and that they're just waiting to actually kept the funds go
through tomorrow so
there was no discussions to be had we were also asked to
find a technical
issue and that we needed to talk to you about that but we
were not allowed to
see the replat to evaluate and just because there are so
many people who were
not given proper notice and we are very worried about the
future impact future
owners of this property might have on our beloved
neighborhood and after
listening to the other properties being rezoned and
developed by mr. Nelms
tonight I feel neighbors who did not receive a notice must
simply just have
more time to investigate the situation further according to
our covenants he
mentioned something about putting a basketball court up and
that also
violates a covenant and according to 212.04 if a proposed
plot arguably
violates restricted codes it must be disapproved by 212.04
and this also
this violates that so what I'm saying is we just simply
haven't had time to work
together and we really need to have just a little more time
so that we can come
together as a community I just don't think that this should
have ever gotten
here in the first place I think there should have been more
investigation more
communication with the whole situation and it's been done
so quickly and behind
our backs and nobody wants to talk to us about it one of
the proposed things that
we had come up with as a compromise is the Thomas property
that joins the hill
property is joined by an easement where the dam is located
and since mr. Hale
stated at the hearing and to mr. Ebersole and to mr. Thomas
that he
simply does not want the liability of the dam we wanted to
propose a replat
which would not involve subdividing it would not be in
violation of deed
restrictions but simply moving the property line to cover
the dam to be
part of the Thomas property removing the burden he is
trying to get rid of
therefore mr. Hale would be able to enjoy his property no
restrictions are
violated and the Thomas's and neighbors contend to the
carrot to the dam care
for the dam this is just one of many different kinds of
things we've come up
with but we haven't been able to discuss as a neighborhood
we just feel very
vulnerable because this would be a person that does not
live on the lake
who would essentially be in great control of the lake and
also when I read
in the deed restrictions it has to be for residential
purposes where you have
to put a house and I don't see on a floodplain how you can
possibly build a
house and it also has to be a certain amount of square feet
there are many many
other restrictions and so I think that we really need to
have this more time to
go over this thank you very much we do have a question
commissioner Rosal thank
you for your time the question is not actually directed at
you but rather a
point that you've brought up as well as other individuals
we talked in work
session about the notice of certified mail going out to the
tax rolls it seems
like mr. Thomas he's been there for 16 months and but you
mentioned the tax
rolls get updated as at most once a year so I have some
concern about how a stay
at home individual who's working at the house well I guess
here's our question
is there any evidence that we can provide that a certified
letter went to
that property owner and the address it went to the
information that we have on
our certified tax roll that we receive from our technical
services department
we can cross reference that with these addresses and check
as you're aware and
I've mentioned this previously and this has occurred with
past cases to where
certified mail goes out and just doesn't get collected and
comes back so we'll
cross-reference with that as well and verify what the issue
is secondly we did
publish in the paper and again the agenda is posted too so
we can verify
and see where that disconnect was as it relates to the tax
roll we can see if
there were other notices apparently that were received with
other items or
elements associated with but we can check and see what
happened there I
think you would be pertinent to do that regardless of what
happens this evening
but one of my concern is is what is the implications for
legal posting if in fact
there was a missed notice that actually didn't go out so we
we after the fact
look and say 3,400 Montecito actually no property owner
current owner received
notification is there implications to public notice in
terms of actually moving
on this item tonight Commissioner Rizal I would actually
have to pull up the GIS
map and look at all the mapping and all the addresses and
cross-reference and
see if that fell within or was shy off or within the 200
foot notification area
first of all so sitting here I can't categorically state
whether it was an
error or not I hope it was not an error and I think we
touched upon this at the
at the work session to Jennifer if I can lean on you please
to address that
issue that Commissioner Rizal has brought up sure so what
would cause a
problem would be our non-compliance with the statutory
requirements and the
statutory requirement state that we have to send notice
within 200 feet of the
affected property to individuals on the latest tax roll and
so as long as we
fulfilled that then we fulfilled our obligation under the
statute there is no
defect yeah I definitely understand that Mike Mike and
there was an opportunity for a different case that required
a public hearing as
you know our notification process as it relates to zoning
or ZBA cases only
board of adjustment cases we have a 200 foot notification
area we also have a
500 foot enhanced notification area which goes directly to
the property
address and not to the property owner so that's why some
people have received
notices in the past which goes back to perhaps clarifying
why the 200 foot
notification wasn't received which is associated with the
certified tax roll
which comes out once a year in in August and then it takes
some time for TS to
then look at those shapefiles and modify them accordingly
so I can I will still
look into that to verify where that disconnect was there
person that lives
within 200 feet that did not receive a letter as well and
what is their name so
that we can have it for the record I'm sorry
it's Brandon Poles at 508 El Paseo Street and we've
actually applied for a
ZBA before unfortunately our house burned down and we were
gonna do a
small modification on our pool house to add a bedroom we
decided not to do that
but anyway my point here is we received all the mailings
for that so I know a
hundred percent that you'll have the correct address to do
that because we
received past notifications on our own property that we
applied for I'm just
concerned because we did not receive any notification of
this except for you know
a phone call from a neighbor last minute and you know we
started digging into
this today to try to figure out what's going on you didn't
receive a certified
or courtesy no you neither neither one and we have
absolutely received them
before there's multiple people in the neighborhood who have
expressed this it's
this wasn't just a one-person thing I know several people
sent in in emails
they were very very very upset that this was happening and
this there they did
not get letters and so I'm just asking for more time that's
we just need we
just needed a little more time it just wasn't it wasn't
done right and so we
just we're just kind of stuck well all I can say from a
legal standpoint is that
it's our mailing of the notice that allows it to be
sufficient for legal
purposes it's not the actual receipt of the notice
unfortunately in this case
we're dealing with a plat plat to have very strict
timelines in normal cases
normal cases you have 30 days in which you have to approve
or deny a plat or
it's it's deemed approved and we typically have an
applicant waive those
provisions on the face of the application they're consens
ual if he does
not agree to a move of this particular item then at which
we did last time if
you recall we got his consent on the record I would feel
highly uncomfortable
and I would have to recommend against postponing it again
because of those
strict timelines that are in place by statute another
problem that we have is
that and in response to the 212 014 provision and that
keeps being thrown
out there is a provision that states that we cannot amend
or remove any
restrictions and those are specifically plat notes that we
would put on a plat
that changed the nature of the restriction or say all
restrictions are
hereby removed the courts have are interpreted the properly
platted lot
that has gone in front of PNC Commission to not amend or
remove those
restrictions so it has been interpreted by a court of law
that that particular
provision doesn't apply in this case in this case we have
very little
discretion that the law provides us as and this is just for
the benefit of all
neighbors if we have a plat in front of us it's considered
it was called a
ministerial duty it is not a discretionary duty and what
that means is
that the law clearly spells out what the extent of our duty
is in the statute
and what the statute says is that so long as a plat meets
all of the
technical requirements that are laid out in our code or the
statute then we more
or less have to approve it there is no discretion the
purpose of it going in
front of this body is to review what staff has already
looked at to determine
that staff was correct and that it meets the technical
requirements I did as a
courtesy look at your restrictive covenants and in my
opinion and what
I've and of course I can't give you all legal advice but I
did advise the board
and I did it in open session I could have done it in closed
session but I
wanted everybody to be aware of what we had determined and
looking at your
restrictive covenants the way mr. Ebersol reads them is not
the way that
I read them the way that I read them is that so long as you
end up with two lots
that are meeting those 150 feet and I think it was the one
acre requirements
that so long as each lot meets those requirements that it
can be subdivided
and I think that the way the statutory construction works
that any court of law
is going to find that as well as far as the residential
requirement that's been
brought up and I might as well just go ahead and continue
since I'm on on this
role the only thing that would affect that would be the
zoning of the property
because we have no control over what people actually build
or not build on
their property if we if he has the ability to build a
single-family dwelling
which we're not changing the zoning then that's out of our
hands you know
somebody could come in and fill in the floodplain and
decide to build something
at a later time of course it would have to come back but
that's not us affecting
the restrictions at all and so in my opinion none of this
violated your
restrictive covenants anyway but regardless of that we can
't look at
those and we can't enforce them and as a body as the
government body what we do
have to do is we have to exercise our limited authority to
determine whether
or not technical requirements have been met for the plat so
that's what we're
tasked with here today we haven't been able to see what it
looked with the plat
even looks like and the measurements to see if we think
that so we just really
needed to have more time yeah I think it's on the online is
it not yeah the
plan is available with the meeting at the agenda of the
meeting if you if you
go to the agenda for this meeting you can click on a link
the link to download
the plot all of our even we were asking about how to get
the plat and they told
us it would take ten days that's what I'm saying it just it
's been so rushy I
just feel like we just have not been able to have enough
time to get together
and and resolve this issue it's just and it's late and it
just seems like
everything that we go to do we just keep getting a negative
you just keep hitting
these negative things and we're just trying to come to a
very positive
neighborly happy solution we were hopeful that you were
able to do that
the last time we postponed it and and I'm sorry that you
weren't able to get a
resolution I feel like we're boxed in here legally and that
we have a time
frame problem and so I don't think that we're going to be
able to postpone it
again now if any of you do have a problem with some of the
technical
requirements that like we said you can bring it forward but
the restrictive
covenant we cannot we cannot even really discuss it so I do
have some additional
commissioners do you all have questions or okay
Commissioner Sullivan thank you
I and I think my question may have been answered I was
gonna ask you or someone
you know what is the minimum size lots in that neighborhood
well apparently
according to the covenants it's one acre what can arguably
be one acre but on that
entire section there are about two and a half to three
acres nothing is smaller
than that be the one oddball sized one acre floodplain lot
there it just doesn't
make sense is what I'm saying and like I said I'm not
saying that anybody is is
up to anything funny or anything like that I just don't
know what would happen
as time goes on then what would happen and it's in a very
vulnerable position
because they're not on the lake and so if if they don't
want the responsibility
then just to sell the whole property is what I'm saying it
's just it's just a
putting it in a bad spot let me give you some unsolicited
advice from someone who
just finished in a neighborhood squabble that is
specifically outlined in law and
after five years four judges and a total of almost a
million dollars in legal
fees you don't want to bring a lawyer into this
neighborhood squabble y'all
need to settle it on your own because no good things is
gonna come out of the
lawsuit trust me that's that's why I've just if we could
just have a little more
time to just be able to get that and to sit down and work
it out together I just
think that would just be the best solution commissioner
Ellis do you have
any questions thank you vice chair I have a question I
guess just real quick for
staff going back to notification in that question with
regard to this particular
property are we where are we starting that that that making
that circle of 200
feet at their address right and I think that might be worse
for you so you you
can you have an opportunity to look at that thanks I
actually don't have that
map available because I don't think I can access the s
drive from here but I can
inform you it was I think it's mentioned in your backup I
believe it was 133
notices were sent and we kind of conservatively interpret
what state law
requires which is the original subdivision be notified as
well as 200
feet around the property what we do is the original subdiv
ision plus a 200 foot
buffer around the subdivision boundaries so that's where we
came up with that
hundred and thirty three notices and those do go to the
certified based on
the certified tax roll to the property owner that we have
on record right in is
it it's from their address which is the Santa Monica
address or because I think
maybe some confusion with with with just is coming from
where this this replat is
on that corner on Alpacaio which would not have been your
buffer I don't think
no sending it out it would have been the address on Santa
Monica right the
buffer is formed from the subdivision boundary so that
original Montecito
subdivision that was shown up here earlier we put the 200
foot buffer around
that that is all of the cards I have that wish to speak if
anybody else in
the audience would wish to speak in favor or against please
come forward now
if anybody else would like to speak please come forward now
and state your
name and address and then fill out a blue card after you've
spoken sure so
again I'm Brandon Bulls at 508 Alpacaio Street I'm just
gonna be real brief I
don't need four minutes I'm just gonna ask y'all you know
as a planning and
zoning board to look at this situation a lot is being
broken up that's for a dam
and that dam is being sold that affects several neighbors
and I don't know if
any of you have really just looked at this on maybe a
Google Earth view to
understand this map or how much time you spent on this you
know I'm sure you
spent time on it I appreciate that I was at the earlier
planning session but it
just kind of amazes me that we ended up in this situation
with neighbors arguing
over what shouldn't be an issue how does a dam get owned by
one individual that
affects so many people so what I would ask you tonight is
please be thinking
about that in future developments and planning and zoning
to make sure this
never happens again because it's just it's a really bad
situation you know I
think the buyer has the best of intentions hopefully he'll
you know do
wonderful things with the property but it just kind of amaz
es me that we're in
the situation and how we got here it's pretty unbelievable
and talking with
planning and zoning today you know that's the staff agreed
with the people
I talked to that it's kind of crazy that one person owns
the dam that affects so
many people so anyway thank you for time I do appreciate
you'll stay in like thank
you is there anybody else that would like to speak we we've
already received
your input unless there's a question for for you I'm sorry
so I do have I do have
numerous cards that did not wish to speak I have one that
has a comment and
the rest I'll read in his account Jane Piper Lunt at 42 11
north I 35 is did
not wish to speak is in opposition and wrote that this is
not in keeping with
the neighborhood and traffic problems that might have been
for the other case
I do have three cards that did not wish to speak in support
and 11 cards that
did not wish to speak in opposition and if anybody else
would like to speak on
this matter please come forward now please come to the
microphone and state
your name and address and then fill out a blue card I have
laryngitis so I can't
talk very loud we just wanted to understand to the council
could we
request another date if we chose to to extend this you
could withdraw it and
refile it does anybody else wish to speak seeing nobody
else wishing to
speak we will close the public hearing
Commissioner Roselle I'll keep this brief because it's one
o'clock in the
morning but I just wanted to go on record to thank everyone
for coming out
it's really unfortunate and it's frustrating to me as a
commissioner just
lets you know that this is a public hearing item in which
you have the
ability to speak your opinions and your thoughts about the
issue yet as a
commission it's a ministerial act and we have as legal has
said we have no
discretion on the matter and so I I'd surely hope that mr.
Nelms protects the
dam for the sake of the neighborhood I grew up in the
neighborhood and so I'd
love to see that pond persist but I just want to before a
vote happens that seems
to happen into the affirmative this evening to thank you
for coming out we
have heard you and we appreciate the feedback regardless of
our ability to
actually act upon it Commissioner Beck thank you both here
and I too want to
thank you're wanting to come out and staying up with us we
were commended for
staying up but it you guys have been here as long as we
have I think all of us
here on the commission were disappointed that we're seeing
y'all again we were
hoping this would get resolved too so again as Commissioner
Rizel said despite
where this goes we hope that some satisfactory completion
comes to this
without court cases or anything like that
Commissioner Hudson move approval item fr 16 - 0 0 we haven
't closed the public
hearing yet did you okay I'm sorry I move Devon closes up
so no I so I move we we approve fr 16 0 2 0 0 2 3 a
because in ministerially that's the only thing to do we
have a motion do we have
a second Commissioner Beck because I reluctantly say I
understand the problem
here but yes I second the motion we have a motion and a
second is there any
further discussion Commissioner Ellis thank you vice-chair
just real quick
thank you everybody for your input it does feel like our
hands are tied here
with with what council has told us and and I wish that wasn
't the case and and
I wish you going forward in the future that you will all
continue to be
neighbors and and to work together and I would like to say
in a to address mr.
Bell's comment bulls comment in probably the last 30 years
this type of thing
would not not have been allowed we as you might have seen
earlier tonight we
had an ADP and there was this detention pond it was
community lot and that's a
really common thing in subdivisions now there will be and
the city won't even
allow a community a lot unless there is an HOA or some
owner that will that has
clear responsibility to maintain it you know this subdiv
ision is 50 plus years
old you know and it and I don't know who I don't know if
they originally built
the lakes or the lakes were already there whenever they
built the subdivision but
this was an artifact of the history and you know a city
that at the time
probably was was barely a town or you know as a small town
and so today this
type of thing wouldn't happen the entire lake would be an
HOA lot and all of y'all
would be members of the HOA and responsible for maintaining
it and I
don't know if there would be some way that y'all could get
to that point or if
that's something you desire you know it's it's beyond us it
'd have to be
something the entire community decides to do together we
have a motion in a
second and I don't think we can vote on the board so we'll
vote by show of hands
all in favor please write raise your right hand how do I do
motion carries
6-0 and one recusal and one recusal our next item on our
agenda is our planning
and zoning Commission matrix do we have any updates
Commissioner Ellis okay not
that anyone wants to talk matrix right now but it's the
right night to bring up
this topic which is can we start some discussion over city
initiated zoning I
don't want another lot like we had to deal with and I don't
know if that's in
a PNZ purview that we have that discussion so if you could
if you're
going to have a conversation could you move outside of the
the hall
we are still having our meeting if you have any additional
discussion please
move it to the hallway
Commissioner Ellis shall I start that again okay I feel
like this is the right
night to bring this up a discussion on city initiated
zoning so that we do not
end up with a lot discussion like we did today on scripture
Street so I don't know
where that falls to us as PNZ if we can have that
discussion but that's what I'm
asking Commissioner Ellis if you recall I'm not sure if you
recall I'm trying to
verify we have created a PNZ subcommittee that is
responsible for city initiated
zoning review and application there were three cases that
or maybe four that the
committee was amenable to moving forward the council at
that point had some
questions and was keen to have a joint session with the PNZ
or slash this sub
committee and what I will do is I will visit and discern
where that is on the
schedule with them I believe it got pushed out but we we
can definitely
reinitiate for the lack of a better word and start working
on this and come back
with some of the program priorities we had actually
presented some items that
were relatively simple consolidation of zoning and I think
it would this would
be a good opportunity to use those once again as an example
we did have a work
session with City Council explaining to them what this
committee does what its
intent is and what the intent of city initiated zoning was
the council felt
that they needed a little more time to digest the
information but I will
definitely come back to the Commission with some answers on
this okay if I may
so is that subcommittee still active you mean that yes it
is in existence yes it
is I believe Commissioner Roselle we suspended the meetings
we've just
suspended pending outcome of what council decided on the
the first properties and
they determined that we would not go forward on properties
unless they were
consented to by the owner I had one more thing if I'm still
on the clock okay is
there any room for PNZ to discuss SROs at any time because
clearly this is
coming up time and time again because it's the development
de jour it's going
to keep happening it's commissionerless the City Council
had requested the
planning division to review or discern or have discussion
at work session about
SROs we did provide some information to the council as it
relates to definition
of their SROs as it relates to benchmarking in other
communities
especially in college towns as it relates to SROs and we
also provided some draft
language that would have more restriction or have
restrictions associated with it
as it relates to development at that time at work session
the City Council
directed that perhaps the issue is more likely attached to
the development
criterion the multifamily development standards as it
relates to the parking
ratio requirements building heights basically massing of
the structure and
based on that outcome they we presented back at work
session with City Council I
would say at the most one month back and we provided some
added information as it
relates to the core of downtown which is your DR2s your DCG
's your DCN zoning
districts which is really what you've seen at tonight's
discussion to requiring
a specific use permit for any multifamily development
within those
zoning districts especially the core and given the small
area plan initiative and
given the historic districts that we have we received a
favorable it was a
very favorable discussion in the sense it was very positive
and productive and
council has now directed that we proceed with an ordinance
for that because that
is an amendment to the Denton Development Code it is a dual
public
hearing process so we have to initiate that and that item
will be coming before
you we actually decided to do a work session with you first
however I am
going to pull the Commission now if I have that opportunity
if you would
prefer we can actually do the public the work session and
the public hearing on
the same date to to move a little faster opposed to doing a
work session and then
coming back with public hearings so if you choose you know
if you want to give
me direction and say let's proceed and do the item I
received direction yes
super okay so we'll go ahead and do the notification
procedure and just bring it
to the to the put it placed on it on a very near pansy and
if you could slip in
a definition of dorm that includes SROs or any place where
we would have to change
that rooms are leased separately from kitchen collegiate
housing collegiate
housing dormitory something along those lines like some
definition like that
that would be wonderful what we what we can do is and
provide some draft
language which the planning and zoning Commission is
welcome to then recommend
that that be incorporated in the language Commissioner
Hudson so real
quick I just want to follow back up on Commissioner Rozelle
's question about
historic markers that fee the $200 fee or whatever and we
're going to look at
maybe what goes into that and potentially waiving that
because all the
other work they do with that and so can we get a can we
kick that around at some
point in the future Commissioner Hatsbeth and Commissioner
Rozelle we do have that we have an application fee which as
it relates to
historic landmark designation in the public hearing
processes obviously
having a historic landmark designation is indeed a positive
attribute that you
know we should look upon favorably I would like to add that
we are hopeful in
the very near future to address our fee schedule because
our fee schedule is
adopted by ordinance that fee is referenced in there we
were hopeful to
actually do a cost-benefit analysis on all the fees that we
have and possibly
look at potentially eliminating or reducing the fee
associated with that
element or component hand-in-hand with that the historic
preservation ordinance
is we're looking at making some minor amendments to that
from a procedural
aspect so it will be a few months but I think we will be
able to review and do
an analysis on the fees and bring that forward before you
as well
Commissioner Beck last thing I was disappointed to hear
that we're still
having problems with notification issues I thought we had
resolved it where they
would go out to not only the address it's on the city rolls
but to the actual
address itself so there wouldn't so we're we again to talk
about the
notification we had conversation with the planning and
zoning Commission we
floated some draft ideas we talked about postcards we
talked about refining the
language there was quite there were some questions as it
relates to the
enhancement of the notification process can we do something
with our technical
tools and what have you we then presented we also prior to
that had
conversation with the City Council and the City Council has
also requested that
what can we do with the notification process I would like
to add that we go
above and beyond the state requirement right now as it
relates to where and whom
it goes to I will verify the tax roll issues and make sure
that all that is
current and and lean on another department we collaborate
really well
together so I'll lean on them and make sure we have the
correct information I
do anticipate that we will come back with some
recommendation for the 500
foot notification and perhaps use a postcard and also
eliminate the
certified mailing procedures as you know the certified
mailing procedure it is
cumbersome for a property owner to want to go to the post
office and pick that
up and it's also very expensive which you know we gave you
an analysis on that
so if you would bear with us we we will bring that to the
forefront as well
Commissioner Sullivan real quickly because I'm sleepy could
you just simply
add our current resident and just put on a postcard I mean
I get junk mail all the time
from the current residents. Right and we'll bring that
before you now we really do not need to codify anything as
it
relates with the notification procedure because that's
already in play we will
just refine tune or refine the language that comes that
goes to the community so
it wouldn't be any it's not a difficult task it's just
something that we need to
bring forward to you expeditiously. And with that we will
end our planning and
zoning meeting at 1 on March 9th.
you