Sep 27, 2017 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2017-09-27 5:00 PM

Zoning Commission work session for September the 27th 2017. This meeting's been duly posted and we do have a quorum present and I will call us to order at 5 o 2 and at this time I will turn the meeting over to Ron for clarification of agenda items. Thank you chair. Before we get to the clarification for agenda items I wanted to take a few moments to introduce some staff members. First one is Scott McDonald our interim director of development services and then I'm gonna have Jerry introduce Victor since he... Sure from down in the proud city of McAllen Texas Victor Flores joins us as a deputy city attorney. Okay so the first one is a plaque and I'm gonna have Julie come up and make that presentation. Hey Julie before you get started I'm gonna need to recuse myself on this item A and since it's a consent agenda I'll probably just stay out of the next item as well just hopefully it'll go quickly and then I was going to ask because I have a second item which is unusual to have this many for me but item B I'll need to recuse myself on that so if you all want to take that in out of order and just follow the consent agenda and I'll just recuse myself for both of those items then come back so we don't have to do musical chairs of me here and gone and back and forth if that's okay. Yes. All right so this is a preliminary plot for a single-family residential subdivision it's Evers way it it is located on North Locust and this will be Hercules Lane and I'll stand for any questions that you have. Commissioner Sanchez. I'm gonna I'm gonna call Jim Jinx up with DRC engineering he can more fully explain here. Tristan Trail well you have Tristan Trail that's a that's a road straight right that goes lead right into Hercules okay okay I just wasn't sure because it also called it so all your utilities are coming on that on that road because I believe it called it an easement utility eas ement. I see a label for four foot electrical easement looks like it's just outside. Just outside. Joe can I ask you to go to the mic. Keep forgetting. Okay there's a four foot electrical eas ement just outside of each right of way and then typically for the city utilities water sewer storm typical sections those are within the street right of way. Okay okay. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Mr. Chair. Just along the same line Jim then when they start this development Hercules will be linked from where it ends there Locust over into that housing development you'll be able to take Hercules all the way from near Discovery Park to Sherman Drive. Would that be a good guess ? This Evers way does not reach it by itself it does not reach far enough west to connect to the existing Hercules. It would connect to it would connect to Locust. We are going to widen we're going to take Hercules at least the length of the developer. Yes yes and we are in talks with the developer this this property as well as the adjacent property to the north whose frontage does extend further west and trying to work out an arrangement whereby the full width of Hercules is built the whole way for that connection. When they're working on this development? Yeah. As opposed to waiting for that area on the north. That's all that's a sort of all being discussed right now yeah and there are more or less at this point along with the DME substation kind of coming in the process together which is good. Okay thanks. Yes sir. I have another question. Commissioner Sanchez. Oh okay. On the here on the right side you have a two what is it? Can you pick it up a little bit? What's the name of that street? Locust. Go up a little bit. Oh this way? Yeah. Yes sir. 21 64 and then you have Skeleton Street that comes it's inside that that subdiv ision is and I'm just curious it's becomes the exit is going to be where though the existing subdivision is it seems like is that correct? On to 2164? I was just curious. Okay it comes all the way down here. Okay right here. Okay. It seems like there's and I don't know if this if it's pert inent but it seems like that whole subdivision that they're building they're gonna have to come all the way down here is there is it pertinent to even ask if there should be another entry into 2164 so that it's all the all the traffic from this neighborhood it only has two exits and I'm just I don't know if that's part of this project would involve the connection of Hercules to 21 64 and then they have an entrance shown off Hercules that Tristan Road. Right there's that exit right there going into Hercules and then the other one comes down Skeleton Road all the way down right and it comes in that that's a subdivision already exists so what I was my question is it seems like there's a lot of homes there you didn't have to go up to Hercules or have to come all the way down to exit out of that subdivision. I'm just curious. Can you explain the separation for roads and driveways for a subdivision? It seems like Mr. Sanchez is asking if there should there be a another entrance exit for this subdiv ision on 2164? Well I can tell you we've been in discussion with the applicant about a TIA to look at issues like that and you look at issues like turn lanes and to see what configuration would would work best. Some of that is not resolved here at the point of pruning plat and we don't really feel it has to be but it's certainly my final plat and it will be and we're in frequent discussions with the applicant about that with those concerns in mind. Commissioner Smith. Thank you Vice Chair. There is a response form with a woman who did request that she does not wish to sell. Can you give me quick clarification? Is there is there a purchasing happening here? That has to miss information on that. That actually has to do with one of the zoning cases that will be coming up. It lines up with I'm sorry it does. You're right. Apologies. Any other questions? Commissioner Sanchez. At the bottom you have what there I guess the right what do they call that? I can't I don't know. The water right there where those dotted lines are? Right here? A little bit to the left. Oh right here? Is that you have I guess some some ponds there, settlement ponds or something for that currently exist for the drainage? Is that is that correct? This is a drainage Eastman. Okay is that is that part of what was going to help the previous the McC amey Evers phase one and how is that going to affect if you if you get rid of those how are you going to take care of the drainage in that area in the other subdivision? I was assuming that's why they built those. I am not sure offhand what is in that easement now but there is a detention pond for McCamey Evers phase one down near their southern or southeast property corner and then we would be I believe that the drainage layout for phase two here basically connects to storm sewers that stub to the north property line of phase one that that would be tied to. So coming down the street I think Skeleton Way is one such street and as well as the Doris Drive here is my recollection. Okay. To clarify this is the preliminary plat so once this all gets vetted there'll be a final plat coming back to us for final approval? Yes. Okay. Yeah and as part of the final plat we review the construction plans so we give that a thorough look. Any other questions? Thank you very much Jim . So the next item is the preliminary plat for the Robeson Ranch unit 2-5. Julie would be making this presentation. So this this proposed preliminary plat is within the Robeson Ranch plan development and it is for a single-family residential development that is in accordance with the plan development requirements. It does meet the technical requirements as well not only for the engineering but also for the gas well the nearby gas wells as well. So I'll stand for any questions and Jim's here if you have any engineering ones. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Vice Chair. In relation to the gas wells I just was kind of confused the asterisk and on the notes down there it points out that the asterisk den otes those lots that are within a thousand feet of gas well drilling and production site and the measurement was like was in there was one inch for 200 feet so actually not all those lots are within 1,000 feet so I was wondering why they went ahead and marked them as such anyway. I can't answer that for that for the applicant. We have reviewed it and within this boundary line. That was my next question on the south side of Creekwood is the boundary line. Yes sir. Yeah and it seemed like all of Kirkwood would be eliminated if that were the boundary line using the measurement on the plat so I was just curious why that was there and since this is a preliminary plan we can probably deal with it later too. Yes sir. Okay thank you. Any other questions? Thank you Julie. I think Julie if we go ahead and move to the first public hearing item Z1713A. All right. Vice Chair yes we're gonna move to item B. Correct. Apologies. So that we can discuss this and then bring Chair Strange back for the first item. All right so I'm Julie Wyatt, senior planner at the city of Denton and I'm presenting Z1715 McKinney-Mayhill. So the request before you is to hold a public hearing and consider a read of making a recommendation regarding a rezoning on 73 acres from ECI district to CMG district. Just to orient you the site is located or situated in the east side of town at the corner of McKinney and Loop 288. Currently as a zoning designation of ECI it also has frontage along Loop 288, McKinney, Market Street and then also the future alignment of Mayhill. So there's quite a bit of access to the property. There's some existing development on the site so I just want to go over that briefly and just let you know what's going on on the site. So first of all there's an existing vacant building to the north and I believe that is being redeveloped as a community service use. There are also some warehouses to the south. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Vice Chair. On that building does not serve, didn't occupy part of that building? I believe it does. I think I saw that in the paper. Okay so in regards to that are they moving or will they be staying there? Commissioner Smith. Yes, Sir Denton does actually own that building now according to the to the past executive director and one of the board members Pat Smith. They do own it so that was actually gonna be a question of mine. They own that building now. They have not received notification nor have they talked to anybody talked to them whatsoever about the zoning issue. That was owned by the building was previously owned by the person who's requesting the rezoning as well so I don't know if that's been clarifiable or not but yes they do own it they're owning the entire building now correct. Commissioner Beck. Are they currently occupying the building? They're currently remodeling it yes. Okay so nobody's occup ying it right now but they do plan on getting a certificate of occupancy. Well those are some great comments and what I'll do is I can talk with the applicant before the regular meeting and get some clarification on that. There's also three warehouses on the on the site. There was a previous lumberyard I don't know if anybody remembers that in this location and there are some trees there's the heavily treed in the center part of the site and an environmentally sensitive area assessment will need to be done prior to development to determine if that tree area is upland habitat so that would happen at the development stage it's not really something considered at the plot at the zoning stage but it is something to that will be addressed in the future. So we look at the compatibility and the surrounding zoning and uses. First we look at what's immediately adjacent to the site so as we've talked about the subject property has an ECI zoning designation there's also some adjacent EC I there's some self storage included in that there's some office uses as well as some vehicle repair across McKinney there's CMG and CME and those areas are developed with commercial development and multifamily. In this area there 's some NRMU zoning with developed with multifamily. As we zoom out a little further there are there's RD5X off to the east that has office some office use single family and also agriculture. NR2 is in this location developed with the school there's also NRMU 12 in this location with multifamily and then that there's a single-family residential neighborhood here which has an NR 4 zoning district so there's quite a mix of uses in the area. And what I really want to focus on on this slide is mobility because it kind of affects not only the development of this type of the zoning so we've got several large roads in this area. First of all McKinney which is a secondary arterial. A secondary arterial is intended to move move citizens throughout different areas of the city. Also you've got an arterial here you've got the loop as most know it's kind of a commercial corridor especially in this area and arterials are intended to once again move people through the city and also into and out of the city so that's the intent of that arterial. We've also have collectors north of the subject property as well as Mills is a collector and then and then we have the future alignment of Mayhill and and it's it's not finished being built yet but it's going to affect this subject property as it's going to be adjacent to it. And I wanted to spend a little more time on Mayhill because it's going to be a pretty a pretty dominant road on that side of town at some point in the in the near future. So I zoomed out a little further and we can see this the subject property is this yellow star and and Mayhill is going to go continue north from the subject property and it will also connect to the south to 2499 at Teasley so it will link Denton to DFW Airport essentially so it's going to be a real regional thoroughfare. The Denton plan 2030 identifies this area's community mixed use. A community mixed use is intended to promote a mix of uses primarily commercial but can have some office uses some multi-family those supporting uses. This future development should be developed in a commercial way and raise the standards of the site design. A typical development may include like a grocery store or drugstore especially shops maybe offices and employment uses and then uses within the proposed CMG district do align with this future land use so it is it does conform to that future land use designation. So so although the future the the request does conform to the future land use we did also look at the compatibility of the request and what 's around the area. So staff does believe that DCG is or I'm sorry CMG is appropriate in this location because it permits commercial development that's typically found on arterial roadways so you can see that there is going to be access not only from loop 288 and McKinney but also from Mayhill so this is the type of development you typically see on arterials. CMG would develop with a commercial character prohibiting the uses and design character that's allowed under current zoning. Undercurrent zoning is more of one of our more industrial zoning districts and so if it developed under current zoning it's more industrial uses and could be developed with an industrial character and this is kind of a large corridor that's going to bring a lot of commercial development so staff doesn't feel that ECI is is appropriate in this area considering the access and the visibility. CMG is a logical extension of the existing zoning as you can see in the map in the bottom it might be small but all of the other corners of loop 288 and McKinney do have that CMG zoning so this would really just complete that intersection. The existing and future road network provides the access that you typically want to see for commercial development but we do want to be sensitive to the nearby neighborhoods and so when you see that existing those arterials that surround the subject property they do provide that physical separation between any commercial uses that would be developed there and the nearby neighborhoods so to provide that buffer and a little little mitigation between any potential nuis ances. Notification was sent out we've received two in favor I did provide sorry I stapled them together and I believe though the the responses that I received for this project are at the back and there were two of them that I received so based upon the criteria for approval and the future land use and the debt and development code staff does recommend approval of your request and I'll stand for any questions. Commissioner Smith. What is the current RL right away on McKinney there bordering the proposed zoning change and if McKinney ever does get expanded will that our way be big enough to be able to allow for the type of in flow that you're looking for by changing the zoning? Well when it if and when it develops platting would be required and typically we have additional right-of-way dedication that comes in with the replatting so and perimeter street improvements so that type of improvement to McKinney would come at the time of development. There's a northeast residence up there on McK inney I was about to Google the address of one of the folks who replied I think they were on they're on Fawn Drive but if you look on the map there if you're able to see that just south of Saffron along May Hill it's a long driveway backwards it's a single-family it looks like a single family when I drove up to the side it looks like a single-family residence is that going to be impacted at all by the changing of the zoning in any way? I'm sorry but when you said it's off of McKinney in this off of May Hill I apologize. May Hill so is it right there to the left of your mouse? Right right here? Go down just a little bit right there that area if there's a single-family residence right there off May Hill that will be in that development is there? That's a part of the request and so it would I would and the applicant it will be here to answer any questions specific to the future development so they could probably provide a little more information about what's going to happen to those those residences there now. That's it. I'm done Commissioner. Thank you. Any other questions? Julie does the property owner can you help me out with the applicant does is everything in the yellow box belong to the property owner? That was that is my understanding but I can certainly confirm with them because if we'll need to confirm that because it's not the case then if they don't own all that property within the yellow box they can't request a rezone of that property can they? Well and for instance this corner right here on seven oh this this is owned by 7-eleven staff did want this to come into the request because we didn't want to create an isolated zoning district by rez oning everything around it and so we did have to get 7-eleven's approval to move forward with the rezoning so yes if you they would have to have approval from property owners if they did not own that property. And who's the responsibility on to document such permission? It's a part of the application so it's provided by the applicant. Can we have that verified before the public session about those properties? Absolutely absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions on this item? Thank You Julie. Sure. We can invite chair back. , please. [inaudible] [inaudible] All right so you're in a go with A now. Yes. I'm going to ask Julie White to come back and present the item for Justice Plaza. All right so we have another proposed rezoning on kind of on the east side of town. So this request is to rezone approximately 3.2 acres from NR 6 to NRMU 12. The subject property like I said is on the east side of town. It's north of McKinney and east of Janney Street in this yellow box. Just to orient you this is the Denton County courthouse. So this property was part of a rezoning that happened in 2014 that rezoned this entire a seven acre tract from NR 4 to a mix of zoning districts that included NR 6, NRMU 12, and NRMU. It was a part of a comprehensive mixed use plan that included office, retail, and some restaurants, and some cluster moderate density housing to the north or on the subject property which is why the zoning lines are a little different. Once again we'll look at the compatibility. First what's most adjacent to the site and then we'll zoom out. So first of all surrounding the subject property to the north and the east and the west you have NR 4 district which is developed with single-family residential uses. This is an established neighborhood that 's been there quite some time. To the south of this subject property is NRMU 12 and that has a single-family residence on it developed on it and then NRMU adjacent to McKinney right here has some office uses developed. Across McKinney you've got the Denton County courthouse and some other government buildings. As we move out a little further we've got additional commercial space brought in on the on McKinney. CMG has some additional government as well as commercial office and some multi-family development and then you can see that that neighborhood comes into focus as you zoom out. You can see it's a it's a fairly large neighborhood. We'll look at the mobility of the area. We've got two roadway types that are dominant on this map. First you've got your secondary arterials that is McKinney right here it's this in green. Once again this is a road that is intended to move our residents through the city to different parts of the city in a quick fashion. You also have Woodrow and Audra here also a secondary arterial. You've also got some collector streets. Paisley to the north connects to Audra as well as goes further west of it and then you have Riddell Street which goes all the way up to Mingo. Jani which is adjacent to the subject property is also considered excuse me to be a collector primarily because of the number of single-family residential uses that are on the that are located on the street as well as some of the commercial zoning that's near to McKinney but as you can see it really doesn't function as a collector street because it's got more of a residential nature on the north side of it also because it dead ends at Paisley it doesn't directly connect to other arterials so it's it doesn't provide a lot of connectivity. The subject property is considered low residential per the Dent Plan 2030 that's the future land use designation for the subject property. Low residential is intended to be single family uses for a maximum density of one to four dwelling units per acre. So when you think a low residential within the Dent Plan 2030 you kind of think of suburban type development. Single-family neighborhoods that are that are distinct and that are attacked that are connect to the city with limited access to arterials so that's that's really what the intent is. NRMU 12 does not conform to this future land use designation because it permits some commercial uses as well as it has a maximum density of 12 dwelling units per acre so it's more of a moderate density zoning district. So when a rezoning doesn't conform to the future land use staff takes takes a little closer look a little more scrutiny is applied to the case in order to ensure that any request would conform to the character of the area and and be compatible with the existing uses. So and we did and we we perform that analysis for this request. So as you can see that this site is situated in the center of an existing established neighborhood. The development pattern around it is consistently low density single-family dwellings and and this neighborhood derives its protection from that that current zoning pattern. So as you can see the map on the bottom this is all in our four so if and when any redevelopment occurred within this area it would have to redevelop in a single-family way consistent with what is already already in place so it's it conforms to it. An extension of NRMU 12 into this neighborhood would introduce new uses new commercial uses and a higher density than what is existing and so it would really be inconsistent with what's surrounding it. Under the current zoning NR6 provides a nice transition between that lower density NR4 and then the higher intensity development that you typically want to see along the secondary arterial like McKinney. So that staff is in agreement with this existing zoning pattern in order to provide a gradual transition not only transitioning up to the higher intensity development on the road but also transitioning from the road into those single-family neighborhoods. This current zoning pattern could encourage a thoughtfully mixed use develop a thoughtfully designed mixed-use development that could bring in some compatible compatible uses and also just some moderate density housing within this area. Now the applicant has proposed a mixed-use residential protection overlay to address some of these compatibility issues through some design consideration and staff looked at that but we really feel that the incompatibilities are coming from the uses that introduction of the commercial development within that existing neighborhood that really creates that conflict between those uses and so the design considerations we feel just aren't sufficient and that the current zoning should stay in place. Public notification was sent out on the property we have received some letters in opposition I believe you have eight in front of you not all of those were within the 200 foot boundary I believe only three of them so right now we're at 5.8% opposition and this map kind of shows you who was in that that within that 200 foot boundary we've also received two letters in favor of the request so based yes sir. Commissioner back. Thank you chair. Going back to that overlay I noticed in the background material you indicated that that information the things they wanted to do to gain favorability the applicant that information did not go out in the notification but they had a meeting a neighborhood meeting I believe on in July. Yes sir. Was that discussed was that overlay discussed at that meeting? There was a potential for overlay discussed at that meeting to address some of those site design considerations so it was something that the applicant did bring up that they would be that they would be open to and would consider putting on the site but nothing nothing definitive was was presented at that neighborhood meeting at that time . Oh on considering the overlay and some of the things they would do okay so when they are at least the ones we received that opposes project they really didn 't have a lot of information about what the overlay would do. Correct. Yes sir. Thank you. So based upon the future land use designation in the Denton plan and the goals that are associated with that low density residential future land use and the character in the compatibility of a rezoning to NRMU 12 staff recommends denial of the request based upon those factors and I'll stand for any questions. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you Chair. Julie it seems to be the same owner that owns all of that land is there a reason that they gave you why they're not doing this development at the front where it would be allowed to be without a zoning change? They are proposing to develop the the southern part the front part of the the land as as it is zoned they however and the applicants here and they could probably address this further but what they what they have presented to me is that they would like to continue that office type development to to include the whole seven acre tract. Okay so basically have it be one development from the from the south part. Okay thank you. Commissioner Smith. And the definition of NR6 says that there is the allowance for some supportive commercial uses. Is that definition of NR6 what's currently zoned? Can you help help define what that means by by some supportive commercial uses? I'm looking here at the just with the planning and zoning department of city of Denton is what it says for NR6. Hold on let me get my staff report. Make sure I'm looking at the right thing. If you could direct me to where you're looking in that way I can make sure. Commissioner Rossell helped it's just very limited it just the definition here is very general but the actual use list now helped answer my question. Okay great thank you. Commissioner Rossell. Thank you chair. Can you help with the history of the properties being zoned? MRU 12. I mean do you have a timeline of when that was done or? That was done in 2014. Was the NR6 also done in 2014? Yes sir. The entire seven acre tract was part of a rezoning request that rez oned it from the NR4 to to these three zoning districts and the applicant at that time presented a concept that included some retail and and maybe some restaurants or drive through uses here along McKinney transitioning to office uses in this NRM U12 and then a cluster home type development in the NR6 so it was it was kind of a comprehensively planned mixed-use development. That sounds like a great idea in 2014. Is it the same property owner coming back now? It is a new no it is a new developer who would like to do something different with the site. Okay thank you. Sure. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. The house that seems to be about right in the middle of the area on Je annie Street is that property is that the owner of this property of this seven acre tract? There is the owner yes on this seven acre tract is I don't know if he lives on that. I'm not sure. It's a residence though? I believe so it is still a residence yes sir. That's my understanding. Okay thanks. Commissioner Smith. Jeannie Street's in pretty terrible condition if anybody's gone out there. I know we're talking specifically about zoning not to talk about plat ting right now but with a new zoning extending that type of commercial use backwards is there some sort of quality of street that we have to abide by in the future that that that would have to be repaired before you're allowed to have commercial use used that far back? Does that question make sense? It does make sense. Thank you. Yes during the platting and development stage and a developer would have to under current requirements would have to improve the perimeter streets for their side and their section so so half of Jeannie Street and up to wherever the development stops would have to provide improvements and Jim is nodding so I said it right. Anything else? I'll ask a question of staff. They put an overlay on here and reading through the overlay it looks to be that they've actually reduced some of the things that are allowed as far as heights as far as set backs that you could do in NR6. It seems just as a question even though you may not like the zoning request the actual restrictions restrict the property more than what they could do there now and so I guess the question is are we looking at it just because it's a zoning classification or are we looking at it what can you build there with an overlay that it's actually probably less intense and impactful to the surrounding neighborhood versus I don't like it being in our MU12. Well NR6 without the overlay is actually more intensive than what they're proposing so they're kind of doing a give us a little bit and make our deal work and we'll take some stuff away. Is that a fair? They have proposed those those limitations on scale of development and we looked at that and we just felt that the incompatibilities came not from necessarily the scale in NRME 12 but more of the uses that those commercial uses in the center of an existing neighborhood. Well I've got to hear that mechanical units have to be a hundred feet away from adjacent properties and in NR6 this 50 by 120 lot so I mean they've got to have all that stuff a hundred feet away whereas you could have it right next door if you built houses there so I'm gonna push a little bit I'm I understand the argument of it being existing neighborhood but I think there needs to be some consideration when they put an overlay district that really caps what they're asking for that might make it less intensive than what you could do there with residential. So just a question is that if staff worked through all that and still felt like even with all these restrictions of things that you can't do there and the heights and the setbacks screening walls it's completely looks like it's surrounded by a forest around all the edges that what impact really is the concern that would be against neighbors other than when you look at it from up above on a map it looks like it versus impracticality the restrictions and what's around it I don't know that it's a huge impact. And we did look at that and it just was centered on the bringing in those commercial type uses within the neighborhood so sure. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair and that's in reference to what you 're talking about that's why I asked if the local residents had been made aware of all these details because I see where you're going that and I'm okay with it to a certain point but I would like the people that live in that area to see that and respond to that and they're still objected to it then that would definitely have an impact on my decision. Commissioner Rose lle. Thank you chair sounds like you opened up a can here but I appreciate the symptoms. When I first saw this I thought initially of individual you might recall this but right north of Chase Bank on University at Hinkle there are single-story office buildings that abut in our sixth neighborhood I believe it 's right across the street from the church there and it seems to be that is a workable situation which is not to impose on the neighbors it they have looks like parking all across the fence line but it's a workable solution that that's okay it's not like a peninsula in a neighborhood over on H inkle but it's certainly adjacent to a pretty dense neighborhood for single-story commercial structures food for thought more than anything. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair. Yeah it's a really incredibly generous overlay to be certain so I'm wondering yeah if if we wonder maybe ask the applicant to re-look at discussing it with the neighborhood I mean they they certainly should have that knowledge because it's it's it's very generous but I'm also wondering too if one of the concerns for denial is the area and what the office building might be what businesses might come in there because the spot is very imposing on the neighborhood I mean the houses are right there so I guess that's the one thing the overlay can't do is is eliminate types of businesses I mean some to some degree they did but I mean we're still gonna law offices which we don't know necessarily what they're going to be there's bail bonds offices all over there could be that right in the neighborhood not ideal so I mean that's certainly a concern for just the location. Any other questions for staff? Thank you Julie. So one more item. So next item is the development code amendment that you guys heard last meeting and Jim is Jim's gonna come up and present a quick update and provide a little more additional information on this item. Jim as you're getting ready for your presentation do you know about how long it's gonna be because I know we have food so I don't know where we should take a break and give you time to get ready or? I was envision ing something on the order of ten minutes. It's really just an update and just talking about some of answers to some of the questions that were raised last time. Okay if I ask one question before you start your presentation are you gonna be asking for us to move something tonight or is this something that's gonna probably need to come back like we talked last time and do a little more work on that? I think the in my opinion the logical thing would be to postpone action until the next P&Z. We have done a public hearing public notice for the council meeting on the 11th or excuse me the 17th of October and we would still have time following the 11th the October 11th P&Z to revise whatever documents would go before council then. Right if the Commission's fine let's go ahead since we're gonna this is gonna come back rather than this is the final look and we're gonna go vote on it. If the Commission's pleasure let's go ahead and do the presentation and we'll we'll eat afterwards. Thank you. Good evening everyone. This is intended to be to be like I said kind of an update from from the last time. I know not all of you were could be present at the last meeting. What I was going to do is do a very brief recap of what I discussed before what I introduced and then like I said get into some of the questions that were brought up from the Commission and from the public and the research we've done following that to answer those. As you all know that the city is making a major thorough effort to reevaluate and improve our processes, our codes, agreements in an effort to better serve the development community to streamline processes to protect the interests of the city. One component of that is the development contract process and this is specifically what I'm referring to is the stage between when P&Z approves a plat and when a project is actually authorized to go into construction and we can start turning dirt. That's that's been a historically a source of frustration from the development community as far as the time and the steps involved there so we're looking to streamline that and this this is part of that effort. A request that Development Services frequently receives is that the city file a plat following approval by P&Z and our code right now precludes us from doing that until we get a development contract. We call them two-way development contracts because the three parties named are the city, the developer, and the contractor. It can often take, typically it takes six or seven weeks or more, well no about four to six weeks for a developer to enter the contract with a contractor and get all the bonds ready, turn into the city, and reviewed and approved. So in very often developers want, we find they often want to file their plat before they get a contractor on board. Often I believe often that milestone is tied to project financing so we are trying to find a way to safely accommodate that and then as I mentioned we're also trying to streamline our overall pre- construction process. Very briefly this is our current process I showed last time and as I mentioned from final plat approval down the next line of the three-way contracts being executed typically a realistic best case is on the order of six weeks sometimes it can be much longer and you can see in the next line after that the plat filing there in yellow, the plat filing milestone cannot be reached until those contracts are processed and then I mentioned the hold harmless agreements last time that's a separate agreement it basically our code as written does not allow construction of private improvements to begin until construction of public improvements has been completed unless there is a hold harmless agreement that's executed it's a standard form and we see we allow those on everything but single-family residential so any multif amily commercial we offer that and it's almost always requested so it's almost an automatic step we're looking to fold that into this agreement. After those steps are done the permit can be issued. What I've got here shown as the proposed process is basically you'll see the plat filing would occur much sooner we're talking about breaking up the current three-way development agreement into two two-way agreements the first one being with just between the city and the developer and that would facilitate us following the plat that can be even before the developer enters into an agreement with a contractor use so you can see that would be the next step following that and we will talk I'm running through this quickly this is a recap from last time we talked about the standard note Julie this is my last presentation from the first time is Julie here I mean these first slides were almost identical but the rest are not okay it should say maybe it's a good time to break for dinner I'm sorry I'm gonna call a recess at 555 and we'll reconvene as quickly as we can you okay welcome back and I will call us back to order at 602 all right thank you sorry sorry about the interruption no problem I think it was my fault I think I may have sent Julie the wrong version of the we have the right one now we're good but basically I'll pick up where I left off I'd like to use the pointer though so some of the questions that were raised at the last meeting from the public and from the commissioners included what's a developer's capacity to get bonded as opposed to a contractor what do other cities require could guarantees be issued to the developer and the contractor such that the relates expense of the bond or the guarantee is not doubled because that can be a considerable expense and would the city consider allowing single-family residential houses to be constructed prior to completion of the right public improvements so we've contacted numerous surety companies there was at least eight talked to many agents and vice presidents underwriters were we made attempts to contact you yes media is asking if you can make it full screen I guess it has something to do with their ability to to show it to the public there we go okay thank you we have we found that it's it's extremely difficult to get access to the the underwriters themselves but we did talk to numerous agents and vice presidents of these these companies we have also contacted several cities in the Metroplex and across the state and I 'll get into what what kind of responses we're getting the sureties having the the companies that issue the bonds or the policies they've informed us and as I mentioned an example last time I talked to you the one I had talked to said that in many cases they they do issue bonds these sorts of bonds to developers but it is more typical for them to issue them to contractors for a surety to issue a performance bond to a developer they they typically require that developer to sign personally and not as a newly formed LLC for instance to demonstrate a track record a good fiscal track record and more commonly cities allow developers to provide a alternative fiscal guarantee other than a performance bond and it could take many forms it could be a irrevocable letter of credit like from a bank what we found to be called a subdivision in maintenance bond some cities do something like that it's very similar to performance bond it's just with the developer named or an escrow agreement held by in which the funds are held by a third party and we find the feedback we're getting is the sureties recommend that cities require that the developers provide such fiscal guarantees they're not or they are and that those alternative guarantees are tend to be more readily available to developers than simply performance bonds some can get performance bonds but for many especially the smaller or perhaps newer developments it's more of a challenge as far as our feedback we've got from cities it's kind of interesting because we contact a lot of cities you know around the size of Dent on or larger and there's it varies greatly the requirements in contracting and bonding and timing of when they file a plat varies greatly from city to city there does not appear to be a typical process or protocol there's there's it's quite a bit of variance for instance some cities will not file the plat until the developer has constructed not just bonded but constructed all related public improvements you know some cities don't require development contracts at all just simply bonds we're not necessarily recommending those I'm just I include those as an example of how different cities can be we do find that a lot of the cities do offer several options as to what form the developers guarantee takes so as I mentioned before performance bond or alternatively subdivision development bond irrevocable letter of credit and escrow agreement or something like that and a couple examples of note that I 've included because they are along similar lines as what staff is exploring and pursuing here as far as procedure changes and allowing plat filing earlier one is Georgetown it's about 64,000 people but it is growing rapidly and San Antonio which of course is a large city Georgetown in the Austin area they allow the plat to be filed prior to completion of the public's improvements once a fiscal surety or guarantee has been issued and again this can be a trust agreement I believe that's similar to an escrow agreement that can be drawn from by the city if need be an irrevocable letter of credit or you know back to the performance bond and I know one request that was mentioned or a suggestion or a concern raised last time was structuring this in a way that homes could be lots could be sold prior to the completion of public improvements and apparently that that is that is feasible with this arrangement that Georgetown does San Antonio is the only one I mentioned they will not approve a plat until the developer signs the three pages only three pages shorter than ours the performance agreement that ensures they complete the public improvements but as far as as far and we're not necessarily recommending holding approval like that but they do allow for an approved plat to be filed before the public improvements are completed if the developer provides the fiscal guarantee within three years of plat approval and again they they give options performance bond the irrevocable trust agreement or standby letter of credit like from a bank or a cashier's check. So before I head into that this is in a nutshell what we're finding is while there are cases that we had found and are still finding of developers being able to in some cases being required to provide performance bonds it is we do find that it is more difficult for many of them especially the smaller ones to acquire that sort of guarantee but there are other avenues to achieve that that sort of protection for the city and that's I should I should tonight say and again we will bring this to you again on the 11th we are staff is continuing to to what we've gathered this research now we're having a lot of discussions internally we're working with legal department we are and other departments we are still in the process of drafting the agreements the two two-way agreements that we mentioned last time so we we are we're still this is still a high level presentation but I did want to show you our findings hopefully answer some of your questions and you know all this being said with some tweaks that I've described here we are hopeful that we can still pursue the same direction again we think it was streamlined things and we think it would accommodate the frequent requests to file plots earlier there was a also a request in the last public hearing about allowing or changing our code amending our code to allow for the sort of hold harmless language that we allow for multifamily or commercial that is to say allowing private improvements to start before the public improvements are completed and I want to address that a little bit and I think also I'd like more than anything like to just kind of discuss that a little more in the public hearing we in talking with with managers in in both our our building inspections department and our public works inspection department it's we it's I'm told it's not a request we frequently get certainly doesn't mean that it's it's not worth discussing and considering but I think one to better understand the request or the concern one one one kind of common response it has been it's say for a subdivision until the until the streets are grad ed the utilities installed the streets poured and cured it's going to be very very difficult to even get to the lot and of course there would be coordination issues between the contractors but perhaps that wasn't quite the scenario you had in mind and I just was what it would ask you I guess for further input or discussion sure be happy to that you want to do it in the public session probably sure sure next steps for staff as I mentioned will be continuing to work with with legal on generating revised development contract forms deciding upon the allowable forms of guarantee which options that the city of Denton would be well served in in allowing we will present this again in more detail at the public hearing I think we're talking about the the 11th of October for P&Z and then the one that's been advertised for October 17th for City Council and that's the extent of my presentation I apologize for the technical difficulties thank you for bearing with me I'd be happy to answer any questions Commissioner Roselle I just one question I can re-ask in the public but the previous slide you had mentioned talking about allowable forms of guarantee the staff also including the development community to understand what their thoughts are on forms of guarantee whether it be a your vocal trust or letter of credit are those conversations happening internally and externally I know that internally for sure externally I know that mr. Lee Allison who's here tonight is has been in frequent contact with our legal department as we are going through this process and I believe legal has addressed all your questions thus far I realize what I'm presenting tonight no okay well we will we will the city will now I realize what I'm presenting tonight as far as these alternative guarantee forms are is new and and we certainly can thank you Commissioner Beck thank you just real quick Jim if you could go back to those slides that show the difference in the timeline from the three-way contract to the two-way contract sure you've got a total of looks like 13 weeks there oh no that's cumulative so that's what I'm saying yeah from final plan the three-way agreement once you're at the three way the way it is now it's about six weeks before the plat can be filed is that correct yes six six to seven weeks okay and then that following process which includes pre-construction meeting and HHA is looking at seven so you had a total of 13 there right no no yeah okay okay so I now go to the future so how how is the developer served if if essentially we're looking at seven weeks before permit can be issued and I'm sure I may be the only one who didn't understand that but they get their agreement signed earlier now the plan is filed earlier so how does that help overall with the project as far as building yeah yeah that's a good question well we we all can hear I guess when I'm at let me try and rephrase it from can they actually even though the plants been filed can anything be done on the ground yet before for these other processes are done no okay so how are they benefiting through this measure we get frequent requests that to to file the plant after approval by PNC and I think the most common reason for that is that developers often have financing for their project how tied to the milestone of plat filing but now oftentimes they're not necessarily ready to hire a contractor and start building a project we do see that but it this change would allow them to get the plat file earlier and give them more flexibility is when they can bring the contractor on board for that you know it 's I think it was the response we got from I think it was San Antonio they're saying it's very common almost half the time the developers would rather just bond or put up a guarantee and not build right away we want to defer that I guess what I'm having fusion and maybe Jim can help with this is why would a developer want to get started if he didn't already have contractors lying down is how is that if you get your plan followed and you don't have contracts I don't understand why you don't already have them in place so can you help me with that well someone's gonna be the time frame and to Jim's point you're as a condition depending on each individual developers project the deal the drill structure the business structure right the filing of the plat may be a condition of their loan to fund for example and it's difficult to go start signing contracts when you don't have the funds in place and the letter of credit saying okay yes we'll loan you ten million dollars you're gonna go sign the ten million dollar contract without having that done for example so that's one thing another reason would be it may be as I mentioned I think last time was called paper lots that they are done they're they're ready to go and maybe the developer is not going to actually move the dirt and take them from a piece of paper lot to a on the ground dirt lot that they're gonna sell those lots as papers called a fully entitled that you can go out there and actually begin construction whenever you would like as long as that plat is still in full force to have a time frame on them you would then go over at whatever time that it is due to the market conditions or whatever external factors there may be there may be a sale prior to actual development so it's just more flexibility versus all of these other issues sometimes and things happen to go in and having bonds in place they may not even be ready to go to work but those are those are a few scenarios maybe not all but just some that come to mind right quick thank you thank you any other questions okay thank you Jim I think that's gonna end our work session so I'll close work session here at 620 we'll try to eat really quick and then reconvene at 630 thank you good evening and welcome to the city of Denton planning and zoning Commission meeting for September 27 2017 this meeting has been duly posted we do have a quorum present and I will call us to order at 642 our first order of business will be to stand and give the pledge to us in the Texas flag invisible our next order of business will be to have a motion for our minutes unless we have anybody has a change we'll just take those as one motion okay a vote individually okay we'll take a motion then for the August 9 th minutes Commissioner Rizel I move to approve August 9th okay Commissioner Beck second okay I have a first and a second any discussion or any changes seeing none will call for a vote on board motion is going to carry 4-0 with two recuse for not being attendance for those meetings and we'll move us to a motion for the September 13th minutes Commissioner Smith a motion to accept okay Commissioner Riz el second okay we have a first and a second for approval any discussion or changes seeing none a call for a vote on the board that motion will carry 4-0 with three recuse for not being attendance of that particular meeting before we get started on the consent agenda the chair is going to change the order of the public hearings I'm going to move item B to be the first item that we will hear during our public hearing section and the reason for that is I have a conflict of interest on one of the consent agenda items and then I have a conflict of interest on item B and so I'm going to recuse myself on both of those items and I will turn the chair over to our vice chair Commissioner Rizel thank you the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda and the vice chair will hear any votes or discussion on the consent agenda Commissioner Ellis thank you vice chair I move to approve the consent agenda and Commissioner Sullivan a second we have a first and a second any discussion you vote on the board the consent agenda passes 6-0 with one recusal the next item on the agenda is our public hearing item Z 1700 13 a this is a public hearing so I'll open up the public hearing and invite Julie Wyatt presentation vice chair we're gonna move item be it at the same thing work session Z 1700 15 still miss Wyatt all right did y'all want me to go through the end the whole presentation again or just do a summary it just fits up to you I think we do the full presentation great all right so the request before you is Z 1715 McKinney Mayhill and this is to hold a public hearing and consider making a recommendation regarding a request to rezone approximately 73 acres from the ECI zoning district to CMG zoning district just to orient you the site is generally located at the at the northeast corner of loop 28 8 and McKinney currently the property has a zoning designation of ECI it also has frontage on on several major roads loop 288 McKinney and then also the future alignment of Mayhill it also has some frontage on market and just to kind of discuss what's existing on the site because there are a few uses existing on the site first of all on the north side of the property is an existing building it is come recently come to my attention that that that property has actually sold and I believe the property owner for that for that piece of property is here tonight and we'll be able to speak to you after my presentation and I believe that as it is currently being used as a community service facility there's also some warehouses on the property as well as some single-family homes there was once a lumberyard at the corner of loop 288 and McKinney that is no longer there and then there's some there's quite a few trees within the center of the property so just to let you know prior to development they will have there will be an environmental sensitive area assessment that will need to be done in order to determine if this is upland habitat if it is an additional tree preservation requirements may apply so to begin our analysis we first look at what the properties are immediately adjacent to the site so within about 200 feet so you can see there is adjacent ECI which includes some self-storage uses some office uses as well as some vehicle repair to the north there's also CMG and CME across loop 288 and McKinney which includes commercial development as well as multifamily in our MU is across loop 288 to the north which has developed with a multifamily use if we zoom out a little further we see that further further west you've got a single-family residential neighborhood that has an NR for zoning district some NR MU 12 in this area which has multifamily development RD 5x off to the east which includes office single-family office and single-family development as well as some agriculture and then in our in our two which has a high school on it so it has quite a few mix of uses one of the large factors in our analysis of this request was the mobility of the area in terms of the access to the site and that will the final access will be done upon site planning and platting but in terms of what what the nearby road network is first of all we've got a secondary arterial which is McKin ney the intent of a secondary arterial is to move our residents through the city to different parts of the city it also has an existing arterial loop 288 we probably are all familiar with in this area it's it's a commercial corridor and the intent of an arterial is to move people not only through the city but into and out of the city and then we also have a an arterial that is is soon to be constructed and that is the realignment of May Hill and I will go into that a little further on the next slide but but that is also functioning functioning as an arterial to move people into the city as well as through through the city there's also some collectors Mills Road as well as some collectors to the north of the subject property and then let's take a little closer look at or a little further outlook zoomed outlook of May Hill so right now you can see the subject property is here in that yellow star and this this dot dash ed line is is a a schematic of the future of May Hill alignment and that is intended to connect to go to go north of the city as well as connect to the south to 2499 at Teasley and that goes all the way to DFW Airport so this is going to be quite a regional connection that will affect not only the development of the subject property but but a lot of the property along that corridor didn't plan 2030 identifies this area as as in terms of future land use and what type of development we want to see as community mixed use the intent of community mixed use is to promote a mix of uses but predominantly commercial commercial development with some possible residential service or other office uses employment uses this development should complement the existing development use pattern and and design and should raise that standard of design and have it develop in a commercial way typical development it would be the the supermarkets drugstores specialty shops maybe midsize offices and and possibly higher density housing the uses within the proposed CMG district do align with the future land use so it is compatible and conforms to the the goals of the area per the Denton plan 2030 so when we look at a case we we look at the comprehensive plan but we also want to take a look at the at the surrounding properties and what the compatibility is and how we want to see it develop so staff does believe that CMG district is appropriate in this location as we typically want to see commercial type development on arter ial roadways right now under current zoning it is one of our more industrial districts that allows more some some industrial uses and allows us to develop in an industrial way and so staff feels like this is at this rezoning to CMG would would would not only get this property in conformance with the future land use but also would align with the the types of uses we typically want to see when when you've got this kind of access in terms of the Mayhill the loop 288 and even McKinney it is a logical extension of the existing zoning pattern if you just take a look on the bottom picture map you've got CMG on three corners of that loop 288 McKinney intersection so this really is just a completion of that intersection and as I said the future and existing road network provides adequate access and is appropriate for that CMG we do we do want to be sensitive to the adjacent residential and the nearby residential and so in looking at this that that existing roadway network does provide some separation from these commercial uses to those residential neighborhoods nearby provides a little bit of buffer a little bit of nuisance mitigation there was a public notification sent out and we received two notices in favor and I believe I provided those to you at the work session so based upon the the criteria for approval for that it must meet the future land use and then also the character of the area staff does recommend approval of the request I'll stand for any questions and the applicant is here to answer any further questions you have thank you Julie any questions for staff at this time Commissioner Beck thank you vice chair this probably isn't necessarily appropriate question for zone chain thing but the expansion of McKinney obviously if we're going to make the second arterial has to be four lanes correct two lanes going each way if this plan goes through all the way can we expect McKinney to be widened by the time completion of construction or maybe even prior to well I don't know about any city projects associated with McKinney but in terms of the current requirements for development within the city at the time of development a developer would have to improve their section of that road for their half so there would be right of way dedication associated with the plat so if there's not if there's if we if the existing right away doesn't match what with the future expansion of McKinney is then then if that would have to be dedicated at the time of plat ting and then during site planning construction any public perimeter improvements would on those streets would have to be completed so the developer would be responsible for at least two lanes that about their property on the Kennedy well in terms of I could why don't I call Jim jinx out and he can be a little more specificity so I'll have Jim come up so the question was required improvements to McKinney Street itself right okay at the time of construction right right I don't think on this project I don't think a plat has been submitted yet right so we really haven't gotten to those issues yet okay however I mean our typical exactions would be right away along the applicants frontage McKinney is a secondary arterial so typical exaction there would be half the ultimate 110 foot section 55 foot in this case beyond that like I said we those sorts of things usually are determined upon platting okay and McKinney is still a text dot no no sir not anymore I believe last year it converted over to the city okay I knew that that was in the plans okay great thank you Jim any other questions for stuff Commissioner Ellis thank you vice-chair Julie did we ever clarify if there were private homeowners on that side of the property I think the applicant would be able to answer that a little more fully I did speak with him before this meeting and he said those houses were vacant but you may want to confirm it with him and make sure that we're all talking about the same thing thank you Julie I think that's all the questions we have this is a public hearing anyone wishing to speak can do so I have two cards for individuals wanting to speak the first would be Pat Smith if you would like to come down if you're wishing to speak if you just say your name and address and you have four minutes good evening I'm Pat Smith 1417 Cambridge Lane I represent that an assistant center also known as served in we are currently the owners of the building at 306 North Loop 288 we acquired that as of September 1st just simply to state that we fully support this request this will become a multi-tenant facility for nonprofits to include a health clinic offices for about nine different agencies as of right now with the capability to serve several other agencies and we're very excited about the opportunity to begin construction in the next couple weeks and we'll keep you updated as we go any questions Commissioner Smith Mr. Smith for clarification just for any ethical issues that I may fall into can you clarify your role currently with serve Denton yes I am a board member I am not executive director you receive no compensation whatsoever from the organization right now correct thank you I sure I do have a comment yes our question for mr. Smith mr. Smith it's my understanding you purchased the property in September or closed or not not you person but served in at the time of submittal of the application it was under a different ownership and so the application was submitted under that understanding however now that the served in owns the property are you okay with the zoning district because it is going to be included the property is as long as the current property owner is in agreement with the application moving forward and is this yes okay we've checked the compatibility code there's no issues for our perspective and so that to close the loop we will require served in the representative of served in to help clarify the issue fill out and sign the application so that it's in our records to show that the property owner is in agreement of the zoning change we'll be happy to do that see no other questions thank you mr. Smith the next card I have is for Greg Johnson so you can just state your name and address for the record and you got four minutes as well shocker but I actually won't take my four minutes it'd be the first time ever thank you all for your service I just want to speak in favor of this project our firm leases and sells a lot of property on loop 288 corridor I think it's safe to say that that corner is rather blighted today mr. strange has assembled a lot of property there with the opportunity to create a real true quality mixed-use project I think we'd be really proud of and that would continue that quality development going to the north it's kind of stopped you know down there south of the county annex right now and I think this project would continue and and and really we'd love to see a quality grocery store there and I think that once this thing kicks off I think we 'll be able to attract a lot higher quality tenants that have been a little bit scared of that part of town that all seem to want to be close to raise a ranch and group together up there and so I would highly encourage you to recommend approval of this project because I think it's really going to help that part of town thank you see any other questions I have one more card mr. JV strange if you just state your name and address you have four minutes good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is JV strange my office address is 531 North Locust in Texas 76201 appreciate the opportunity to come before you tonight I think that mrs. white made a very comprehensive presentation both as a work session and tonight as to what the merits of this zoning case are appreciate mr. Johnson - he pretty much stole my thunder so probably could give him giving him part of my four minutes but I did want to reiterate a couple things as I mentioned except through your work session this afternoon and I heard a couple of questions and to clarify where we are when you look at the property bounded in yellow we owned on or owned all that property when we applied for our zoning back in I think was May 17th we did own the county building we didn't go into contract to sell that to them until July 7th and then as mr . Smith indicated that property was closed near the end of August 1st September so we were well into the zoning at the point in time that that sale was contempl ated I would take it oversight by having not made sure with city that we needed him included but I think you've heard tonight he is willing to be included we do not own the 2.157 acres at the southeast corner down at the intersection of McKinney and Luke 288 we sold that to 7-eleven corporation we did go back to them and they submitted a letter a letter of consent that they wish to be included it's more compatible with what they intend to do with the property so that with the exception of served in which we did own but we now don't own and with the exception of 7-eleven which we did own and sold but have their letter of consent we do have title to all of the other properties that were within that yellow just to be clear on it the properties along McKinney Street don't have a pointer but where that loop is where the small Oak Hill office park is that we acquired back in September of 16 the adjacent property to it that runs the entire length of the property along that kind of a gray line we also acquired back in September of last year then we acquired several individual tracks along McKinney Street there is one if you went out there today there's one little tiny tiny house there that in another good wind will fall down and we'll hold it off there is nobody living there there is a nicer home up to the north toward the northeast corner belong to Mrs. Fonny George we bought that property last September we allowed miss George to continue living there for six months rent free to give her time to find another home she has something moved out we did have a temporary renter in there they have moved out in any tenants that go in there will be our tenants and will be subject to a short-term lease so just to clarify those those points we do on the property I know that it came before PNZ and the council previously but this area was to be a CMG zoning it was in the Denton 2030 plan with both which were approved here at its City Council so we bought the property felt like we felt like that we were in compliance with the zoning that was in place or the zoning designations that were in place in working with staff we have assured that anything we plan to do out there hopefully will be covered aren't this zoning we just want to get this is owned at this time then we will commence working on plans to further develop a property but zoning is a first step no need take any steps out there beyond this until we are zones that window exactly what uses we can and cannot have but I will tell you anything that we're contemplating doing on the property will confront will conform to CMG zoning if you haven't been out there I would also tell you that as of today the ME is out there putting telephone or putting the new power lines up along the west side of Mayhill the gas line is gas companies already completed their gas line so the widening of Mayhill is underway thank goodness and one question came up I think earlier there's a little strip between our yellow line and Mayhill and that is right of way that has already been taken by the city of Denton so we have no further right of way requirements along Mayhill that has already all been taken in consideration and I think a portion of the right right away alone McKinney but my understanding has also been taken account if not as it was mentioned earlier as it comes down to the platting stages we will consider a lot of requirements are there so anyway I would ask you if there are any questions or anything and get was not clear to you and either either the presentations or if there's any other questions that you would have of me I do not see any questions thank you mr. strange I just want to say just you clarified a lot of the questions we had and those are some of the questions we that I had was ownership so I appreciate that yeah we also had letters that we gave to see the staff on all I appreciate you going to such detail thank you very much any other questions I do not see any thank you this is a public hearing anyone wishing to speak may do so seeing none I will close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion and or motion Commissioner Ellis thank you vice chair I think this is an ideal request for this property I think this has been a long-forgotten part of town as it was stated before and I think it's going to be a great development great for the town so I will motion to approve thank you commissioner Smith I will second that motion we have a first and a second any further discussion seeing none I'll call for a vote on the board motion carries six zero one refusal thank you a couple minutes clear to our item a public hearing for a dash zero zero good evening I'm Julie Wyatt senior planner with the city of Denton and I'm presenting Z 1713 Justice Plaza the request is to hold a public hearing and consider making a recommendation regarding a rezoning on 3.2 acres from an NR 6 zoning district to an NR MU 12 zoning district just to orient to orient you to the site it is it is located on the eastern part of town north of McKinney about 420 feet north of McKinney on Janney Street or I'm sorry east of Jan ney Street a little bit of background the property is part of a seven acre tract which was rezoned in in 2014 to include of mixes zoning districts the intent at that time the concept of that time excuse me included retail and office and commercial development along along McKinney in the in the in the NR MU zoning district transition transitioning to office uses in the NR MU 12 and then finally in the subject property some moderate density cluster type housing so it was intended to be kind of a comprehensively planned mixed-use development so today we're looking at that portion that was rezoned to NR 6 and so the first step we do and we analyze the project is to look at what's immediately adjacent to it and and in this instance in our four is is to the north the east and the west and and it is developed with with single-family residential uses so that's a an established neighborhood to the north and east and west of the subject property to the south of course is the NR MU 12 which was part of the subject tract it is developed with a single-family home and then along McKinney that NR MU is developed with office uses across McKinney is CMG and that has government offices the Denton County courthouse building if we zoom out a little further than you can see the neighborhood to the north coming into focus it's a rather large single-family neighborhood and and it it surrounds the property along NRM along McKinney that NR MU section you bring in some commercial uses as you zoom out and then the CMG you've got some multifamily here's also some commercial uses in the continued government offices the mobility of the area includes two secondary arterials and some collector streets the secondary arterials include McKinney and then the Woodrow Audra and and as I said before the intent of a secondary arterial is to move people to different parts within the city there are also collector streets adjacent to and north of the subject property to the north of the property you have Paisley it connects to Audra you all and and then goes and then also continues east there's also Riddell which which starts in McKinney and then continues up to Mingo and then you have Janney Street which is adjacent to the subject property it is classified as a collector Street due to the number of single-family homes that are that have access to that Street also because of some of the because of the commercial zoning that is on the subject property but as you can see it really functions as a neighborhood Street so you've got you've got these to the north these single-family homes and that really it's used as their neighborhood Street to get to their homes it also Janney Street doesn't really provide any connect access or I'm sorry direct access to to the broader network to the north that it stops at Paisley so we looked at the Denton plan 2030 and this area is designated as low residential per the Denton plan low residential is intended to be single-family neighborhoods very low density same one to four dwelling units per acre when you think a load at low residential you think suburban development these these individual neighborhoods that are distinct they have edges and that they they do have access to major arterials NRMU 12 does not conform to this to this future land use designation because of the commercial uses embedded within it and then the the maximum 12 dwelling units per acre it's it's a little too dense to be considered low residential so so because the requested zoning district does not conform to the future land use per the Denton development code the criteria for approval we have to take a little extra look at it a little extra scrutiny is is required in order to determine whether it is an appropriate zoning rezoning so when we look at the site and we look at where it is it's situated in the center of a neighborhood it's it it goes pretty far into the neighborhood and this this neighborhood is a very consistent development pattern of single-family low density residential and this this neighborhood gets that protection it's those single-family uses are protected in the character of that neighborhood is protected because of the zoning that it has because the NR for zoning on the single-family neighborhood with any redevelopment would require single-family homes to go back into those areas or or or residential uses that are compatible with what's there that in our cert six also serves to kind of protect that neighborhood because it keeps that it keeps that commercial development from encroaching further into that neighborhood it provides a boundary and allows a transition between the the commercial development along McKinney and then the residential and so the the further extension of that NR MU would introduce some more commercial uses and potentially impact that single-family residential neighborhood as I said before that NR six provides the a transition between the lower densities and I would say even the whole the whole seven acres provides a logical transition between that in our for the low density residential and then the development that you typically see on an arterial light McK inney and we believe that that current zoning pattern could encourage some thoughtful redevelopment thoughtful development of the property of a kind of mix of uses the applicant has proposed a residential mixed-use protection overlay and their proposal does address them some design considerations but however staff feels that that the incompatibilities are really centered on the uses those commercial and office and retail uses and less to do with the cut with the design considerations public notification was sent out we have received eight notices and opposition in two in favor I passed those out during work session as we as I said before three of those opposition letters were from the 200 foot boundary which which is 5.8% so based upon the future land use designation of the property and the considerations that I have presented in the character of the area staff recommends denial of the request I'll stand for any questions and the applicant is here if you if you to present as well I have a question for you Julie we talked a little bit about this in work session just was reviewing one of the other handouts you said that the main objection that staff has centered on the uses and you've got a table that you've prepared for us in our backup that lists the uses and the different uses between an NR six and an NR MU 12 will you tell us based on the things that they have limited that through their overlay that will not be permitted in here I only see three that are different from the NR six is that what you have that's my understanding that they're there I believe they 're limiting it back to the to maintain the office and the retail uses and the ones that I see that are different or live work units community service and adult or child care and all the other ones they have limited in their overlay is that fair statement well I don't know that is that in the applicants here and they may be able to better okay because I know they've made some changes to the proposed overlay it was my understanding that they were still maintaining those office and retail uses but they may have made some changes to it so so but they're here and they can they can talk to you about what they're proposing in terms of that what were some of the other things I see staff is going to be in denial of this reason what were the other main concerns that you all have on this really had to do with the compatibility of uses within NR MU 12 and we wanted to to in and by further by furthering the commercial zoning into the neighborhood it could potentially compromise that neighborhood it could introduce new uses that may may prove to be incompatible with the existing development I think I think it was mentioned at work session I think it's it's a good point that you know some of these single-family residential uses are are next to and across the street from what could be a commercial development and I think that has a different feel than having you know we often like to see commercial development near neighborhoods because that provides it provides allows people to walk and it's a it's a good thing but when you're but typically we like to see that along at intersections along maybe the arterials and that's why this this current zoning actually it works in our mind and that as you move toward McKinney you do fold in some of those commercial uses and office uses and and that way you get that mix and that by bikes further extending that NR MU 12 into the neighborhood it then it then could compromise that single-family it's going further into the neighborhood and potentially impacting it so that's why staff really is has concerns about this case and it just and it it doesn't meet that future land use which was the the intent of what was in you know what that's the the vision for this area is to maintain it as that single-family residential thank you any other questions for staff okay thank you Julie this is a public hearing the next card that we have is Lawrence Holder if I send you're speaking for the applicant okay you'll give your name and address for the record I'd appreciate it name is Lawrence Holder I am at 2104 East yeah that work 2405 that's it's a new one put the presentation sorry about that is that you yes there you are thank you sure Commissioner back I didn't get the last name clear Holder Holder yes sir okay thank you thank you okay it is the goal of Denton Justice Plaza LLC to go ahead and rezone three point one two five acres of a property off of North McKin ney Street East McKinney Street from NR six to NR MU 12 we have come against a few oppositions for that and we are basically coming up with an overlay restriction for that but again we are doing commercial development zoning change requests from NR six to NR MU 12 our site location is is here kind of off of Jane Street and North McKinney Street the surrounding property uses is residential to the north and to the west but if you can see that there is the courthouse to the directly to the south and the Mary and Jim Horne Center to the east as well so there are other compatible developments within the area what we are proposing our general offices and closer to the McKinney Street which is not what is being considered for the zoning change but closer to this to the street on this property will be retail as well as offices per the zoning requirements on that so the current zoning is NR six there is an awkward boundary line that splits the NR six between the NR MU 12 I believe that was developed originally for the applicant who came in well something along those lines and for specific use and that plan didn't come to fruition so we're now stuck with this awkward zoning line between the NR six the NR MU 12 and we are hoping to go ahead and bring that NR 12 all the way through to the property the proposed use is general offices of that site of that northern part the part that we are requesting to be rezoned which is in conformance with the NR MU 12 zoning we're hoping to rezone this location so that we can have one uniform single comprehensive site as opposed to a bunch of broken uses so we are hoping to construct this site in a manner that is both appeasing for the neighborhood as well as comprehensively throughout itself so one cohesive development the zoning restrictions between the NR six and the NRI 12 don't change very much if really at all from the standpoint that there is the same lot coverage you still have a 60% lot coverage maximum you still have a minimum landscape area of 40% and you still have a maximum building height restriction of 40 feet so the same type of overall coverage building to pavement to landscaping will be the same as though it was developed with the NR six even though it's owned in our 12 again we are proposing offices in this location as opposed to neighborhood unit dwelling units two of the other restrictions general restrictions actually go up for the rezoning minimum side yards about it not abutting it attached buildings goes up from four to ten feet minimum yards when abutting a single-family use actually goes from 10 feet to 15 so we're actually becoming more restrictive on those two general regulations we held a neighborhood meeting and the concerns that were brought up in that neighborhood meeting brought us to propose an overlay restriction we discussed this with the residents at the time and I believe we specifically address them and what we would do specifically for addressing their concerns however there was not a follow-up neighborhood residential meeting that had been brought back that was because we felt as though we had received their input we did address their concerns and they seemed to reciprocate that their concerns basically are these eight concerns of stories the number of stories of the proposed buildings the restrictions of bars and late-night activity facilities preservation of existing trees the improvement to Janie Street was a another interesting bigger issue that was brought up and then again aesthetically congruent development in existing structures they didn't want something that was going to completely outdo their buildings or be something that was an eyesore to that area fixture drainage features to fix the current and future issues they didn't want any additional drainage they don't want any additional flooding to their properties with the development the property values was a concern and then time of the construction again they didn't want something that was gonna like that was gonna take 20 years to construct and they were going to live next to something that was being constructed for a very long period of time the overlay restrictions that we're proposing would be on the non- residential buildings to limit to one story and then 35 foot maximum height on that as well so we were willing to drop down the 40 foot maximum building height to 35 feet and limit that to one story for non-residential buildings the mechanical units that are within 100 feet of adjacent properties we would limit to five ton units there they we would limit those so that would they would be placed on the side of the building such that there would not be more than two units on both sides of the building limiting the total units to four units if required for a building units then would be screened from the adjacent properties for both noise and aesthetics a screening wall is also being proposed along the surrounding property to help facilitate with any additional measures mitigation measures that the residents might feel necessary we also then propose limited allowable uses those uses we would like stricken from the allowable uses would be the dwelling above businesses group homes multifamily dwellings fraternity and sorority homes dormitories beds and breakfasts laundry facilities semi-public halls clubs or lodges kindergarten or elementary schools middle schools elderly housing and elderly housing we feel that the applicant we feel that the opinion that the impact of the proposed development will be compatible to the surrounding development as the existing zoning regulations for inner six are very similar to inner 12 as they require the same 60% or less lot coverage 40% or more landscape area the maximum building height restriction of 40 feet and we're also again trying to limit that down to 35 feet and one story and for non- residential buildings and the same minimum frontside and rear yard regulations the proposed zoning currently and the existing zoning regulates prohibits the construction of bars which was a concern for late-night bars and late-night activity facilities within the inner mutual so that concern is no longer or is not a valid concern at this time applicant will preserve and mitigate the required trees per the DDC we will provide the building materials per the DDC which had to be compatible have to be aesthetically pleasing and has to be in conform ance with the surrounding area the applicant will also provide drainage improvements as required by the DDC which we are not allowed to drain any extra to the surrounding properties we cannot negatively impact any properties around us so we will be taking on all of our proposed drainage and either detaining or releasing as required by the same these restrictions and overlay basically covered all of the concerns that the neighborhoods residents brought up in both their letters and that we received their letters that we received and phone calls and at the neighborhood meeting a hesitate to bring this up but if necessary the applicant is willing to suggest a compromise if they cannot get if a denial of the zoning in its entirety is proposed we would like to suggest adjusting that awkward line at the minimum pulling that up so that that NRMU 12 area can be used more effectively more efficiently and that in our six area can then be again also used effectively again we're just doing a typical general office use this is the general typical office use rendering from the architect at the time that we are proposing so at this time I can take any questions quite a few questions Commissioner Beck thank you chair thank you mr. Holford for your presentation and I must admit I must admit and I think every other Commissioner here will to that your overlay is very generous and and does appear to answer the concerns you indicated though and it wasn't clear to me before you said this that you've talked to the residents explaining the details of the overlay and they were essentially okay with that yet we some of the statements we get back are still in opposition to it so I'm not clear that they've had a clear presentation of this overlay is am I wrong in assuming that those that we talked to you were at the neighborhood meeting as well as those who would call in those who didn't participate in the neighborhood meeting or didn't contact us when we have sent out the notification would not have received any additional information so I don't know what the comments are wasn't provided with the eight comments that are in opposition to the project so I can specifically say to those eight whether or not they are in opposition to anything that that was already said okay and by the looks of them I don't think there is anything there but do you think you might not be better served if you perhaps went back and did a more complete presentation tried to encourage more input from the residents that would get them on your side with this overlay because I as the staff mentioned I would encourage commercial development along this area to McKinney that would allow people to walk distance but your development encroaches very deep into that community you're surrounded on three sides by residential homes and even with all your efforts it does detract it diminishes a single-family neighborhood and I worry about that I worry about it setting a precedent for not only this area but other areas to see where low-density housing is and how it can impact things down the road so I like your idea of maybe your alternate solution that seems viable to me straightening that line a little bit but again I just there 's a need in the city as everybody knows for affordable housing and this is an ideal spot to build at least 18 units for that could serve this need greatly I'd like to see that this is an infill area we definitely want to get it taken care of too so we'd be willing to work with you but I'm just having a problem how deep this development goes into there and think you might be better served if you went back to the community with your overlay plan and laid it out and got some input some more feedback from them that we could see that would make us feel comfortable if we were to support your project any comment on going back and doing it well I know the applicant is hesitant to slow things down at this time however we could hold another neighborhood meeting and discuss these overlay restrictions with the neighbor the surrounding neighbors I do know that this area being across from the courthouse is turning over more to red offices the homes are being renovated into those the need for offices in this area for lawyers or for other facilities that facilitate the courthouse is greatly desired in this area don't disagree with that but you do have that front part of the track there at 3.8 acres that you could use it for so I can understand you want more but you can still do something along those lines with that without going that deep into the community and perhaps disrupting it too much and staff is mentioning just my two cents worth commissioner Ellis thank you chair thank you mr. Holder for your presentation so I think you're very generous overlay addresses a lot of the restriction issues to make it more compatible but as staff presented it's the use that makes it incompatible because the way that tract of land goes so deeply into the neighborhood can you address how the use how you feel the use is compatible absolutely so the use that we're proposing at this time does not have any greater impact than what the existing zoning has in the size of the facilities that are being provided so in other words the your landscape area so has to be a minimum of 40% so right now anybody who were to develop that area would have to adhere to the landscape and the lot coverage requirements the new zoning has the same requirement so the construction of anything going there would have the same footprint if not the same overall use going into that that building so we feel that we're providing general offices that look similar to what we have provided in our rendering it has that residential appeal that residential kind of look but is not a residence it is a an office that the community can use a good example would be the child care that can be provided for the residents as well as for those who are going to the courthouse the whole desire of this area is to go ahead and construct a cohesive construction that is both needed in this area and appeasing and to the residents of the area that both help facilitate needs of the residents as well as those across the street right and again I think you've addressed the restriction part I mean you know offices that look like homes and and and that 's great but again it's the use that is the issue in this deep part of the lot that that's where I think everybody's getting stuck I think everybody would love to see that piece of land developed along McKinney and I think it's definitely needed it's it's that part that encroaches so deeply it's literally across the street next to behind single-family neighborhoods and a single-family neighborhood that's one of our most affordable dense single-family neighborhoods in the city we have to be careful not to negatively impact and destroy that since we are running short on affordable housing in our area sure so I must not quite understand that question as stated I'll go ahead and pitch it over to the house and I'll actually ask him to come up here to go ahead and possibly answer that question for for you okay or I can restate it if needed thanks good evening Lee Allison with Allison engineering group 24 15 North Elm Street I think we're trying to learn our new address sorry about that in response to a couple of questions obviously we'd like to avoid having a another neighborhood meeting we felt like we did a good job responding to others the three that are in opposition within the 200 feet I can't say tonight whether they were at our meetings or not if the Commission as a whole felt like that we really needed to go back and have another meeting I think we're willing to do that that's certainly not objectionable to us when it comes to the uses the one thing we've done is limit them to one stories 35 feet more to allow for roofs so you're not going to have a taller even two-story homes or anybody looking into the area they again are intended to be more of your residential type buildings the type of offices that we go there more likely would operate during the days possibly on Saturdays mostly during the week so you're not going to have the nighttime evening when most people are at home when it comes to affordable housing the biggest problem is the cost of construction not the size of the home or where they are a lot of these homes are affordable in this area because they're older homes depreci ated quite a bit not quite as desirable in the marketplace today and they just that's what keeps them affordable at this point in time to think that we could come in and put down new lots at today's land prices and come in with a competitive home as affordable that was not really possible we're seeing homes entry-level homes in the hundred and twenty five to hundred and fifty dollars square foot range and these wouldn't be in that range you're not going to see the big commercial lights and things it'll be more similar to what you would in another neighborhood and in good separation distance between the properties privacy fence between the two that's been promised to practically replace all the neighbors existing fences and we're going with a taller fence so that's where I think the uses would make some difference the biggest challenge might be on on Janey Street as far as some commercial traffic but that's why we're proposing the access on McKinney Street at the front I think it's interesting that this is classified as a collector because of all the houses on the front of the street but when I look at the area all those streets are collector streets because of the number of houses on them so that's it's kind of an interesting facet of our development code in the way we classify streets is there anything else related to land use I you know granted you'll have people coming in and out but it's not just because of the zoning you're not gonna have a big shopping center with the massive parking lots and and the huge crowds coming in at Christmas or whatever for shopping events or things like that right and I guess if I can continue I think what's getting lost is my question okay so what I wanted from you is is you've you've definitely addressed the issues the neighborhood at least brought to you in the meeting with your your overlay and eliminating you know types of uses and and and great restrictions on that overlay but what I wanted from you is why do you think this three acres in the use that you're proposing is compatible with with the neighborhood because with the restrictions we're gonna see things like bail bonds on the front they want to be on McKinney Street what we can see in the back is compatible uses such as child care centers doctors offices people that would serve those I don't know it's hard to get businesses that can be supported within walking distance because usually with single-family home districts you can't hardly support a snow cone stand within walking distance it's just hard to do you have to have driving but it would be uses that were compatible I think the marketplace would drive uses that are compatible with the residents as far as things like daycare centers that could serve those residents over there it's not going to really being that far back in there just because of where it is it's not going to really attract the type of businesses that want to be on McKinney per se it's going to attract the type of businesses that want to be in that neighborhood and I think it works well with your neighborhood residential mixed use and the ability to provide the services within walking distance or short driving distance so they don't have to go across town to get to them well you 're at the mic if you don't mind looking at the overhead map and we're talking about affordable housing and availability it appears that right across the street to the west of this site on Janey is a vacant lot it looks like on Hedda Street there are two vacant lots that are available on Riddell Street there's vacant lot available so there is single-family residential lots that are available that are still sitting there vacant even across from what is here a larger track so this will bring that to the Commission detention while we're talking about that that there are available vacant lots right across the street and on neighboring streets that are still vacant so talking about demand and availability so I recognize that next speaker am I allowed to respond sure my issue with affordable housing was not that we need to build more right there it was I don't want to see the demise of what is affordable there's a lot of investors in that neighborhood who would just love this to turn all commercial there so they can sell their property and we have now eliminated affordable leasing and affordable housing options that was my point okay thank you well-said lady did you have something else you wanted to add for our recognize next speaker related to that I was here the night the prior zoning was approved and saw the concept plans and I think the primary reason that that development didn't occur because it was not economically sustainable yeah even for the tiny houses it would be very affordable it just didn't happen for I think obvious reasons any other question yes Commissioner Sullivan thanks chair first I guess to staff I'm confused because you had in your chart that the building height was 40 feet on both and yet and what I'm looking at it's 65 feet for the NR MU 12 is it 40 or 65 in our six is 40 did I show NR MU 12 is a maximum building height the 40 feet in our MU has a maximum building height of 65 feet okay wrong in my chart no I think they had it wrong in their chart that's why I was asking is that you had both heights were 40 yes okay well I've got NR MU 12 is it 's 65 feet in our backup oh I apologize that I that I may have okay so that's what it is so it is 40 yes okay I got that's fine I'm struggling with if when I look at the things that you strike from the district and all the thing all the restrictions the height from 40 to 35 one story what's the difference between just having an NR 6 I mean you're basically building an NR 6 from the NR MU 12 with the restrictions that you're placing in that zoning I'm confused as to why the why the restrictions that ends up looking like in our six the primary reason is because of the garden office type facilities that we can have in some retail and small restaurants and things that can go there there's very limited size of them so it does make them neighborhood residential friendly if somebody would come in and put a small restaurant it'd be a good place to walk to from within the neighborhood so it allows the primary uses that this client is looking at developing in that area I guess it doesn't include everything but we think it makes it even more neighborhood compatible than then what the neighborhood residential district allows for and it just takes away some of the taller higher people use activities such as apartments and schools and things of that nature but mean what and what do you say you're gonna do with about the density you were to keep that at at the at 6 or 12 six actually I'd have to talk to our applicant here Nathan iel Johnson I don't see a problem with keep reducing the density from 12 to 6 because we're not planning on building single-family residential anyway in there so I don't see that that would make a difference I didn't even think about adding that restriction I need Dodson Dodson legal group developing this the Davis your address please sir for the record 109 South Woodrow thank you the big use and restriction as far as I understood is professional space the property itself being just adjacent from the court building is really ideal for the legal community and the legal needs surrounding there's just not a lot of office space or any place for the legal community to get housed in fact that some of the buildings are being acquired by the county it's actually a shrinking area for people that are exactly in my position and other of the legal communities position that we're getting kicked farther and farther out which is not ideal the entire purpose of the development is to kind of create a home and an epicenter for people within the legal community to kind of glom onto being walking distance for restaurants being where I'm sure there's a gun in the effects or kinkos if there were still around as well as being able to house attorneys bail bonds towards the front and have a easy access area that just simply is not existent in the current area in terms of the neighborhood itself I understand the concern brought up about being such a striking difference from commercial to residential but in fact we're trying to work appearance wise into the neighborhood which pitched roof smaller buildings so it won't be that glaring difference between having a Kroger's right in front of your house and a neighborhood so all the the things that are being brought up are considered and very important and we don't want to have a problem with the neighborhood at the same time when you talk about affordable housing new construction isn't very affordable regardless of where you go and I understand and agree with what Lee was talking about previously of most likely the last project for the rezoning failed ultimately because the neighborhood couldn 't sell a new construction is doesn't fit with the current neighborhood either and my biggest concern is is that would end up being empty raw land in the long term because until there's a change within the neighborhood which would absolutely destroy the affordable housing there's not too much that can be done with that property itself so really all I'm trying to do is increase the value of the surrounding community we'd be improving the road itself as well as creating an actual use for a property that may end up remaining raw land for decades because you can't build residential within that current community although it's understandable that you don't want to have a striking difference between a commercial space you know the the CVS and the residential neighborhood it occurs all the time everywhere but we are trying to our best to work within the community keep everybody happy not be a striking difference between the office space as well as the neighborhood itself thank you commissioner Smith thank you chair before I move on mr. Dotson thank you very much for your words one of the things I brought up today on the Commission was the idea of valuation changing and the affordable housing area that surrounds the plot of land that we're talking about in my own personal experience to doing research on affordable housing commercial property purchases and development of commercial property doesn't nearly affect residential home values as much as being people think in actuality a lot of times you lose the demand for residential property when you're getting when you have it closer to commercial so if anything it might actually keep home values less if you see investors want to come in and buy a nice residential home in the middle of a nice residential neighborhood now if they have possibly a commercial space across the way it may be less of desire keeping that value low is what is what the way I perceive it so I just wouldn't have that there on record to mr. Allison and his associates the the genie Street condition it was something that was brought up during the neighborhood community meeting is that something and I'm asking a lot of the questions I'm gonna ask you here are dependent upon the platting process once we get to that is the discussion of the development bringing improvements to genie Street on the table is that something that is going to be addressed because that Street is terrible the condition of genie Street is deplorable and in accordance with the city requirements for development and perimeter street requirements we will be working with the city to accomplish that we are already in the process of laying it out one of our big challenges is to try and come up with an alternate design so we can try and keep those trees in the median where gen ie is going to go people really like those but if that Street gets rebuilt to city standards without some kind of exception by the city those trees will have to go but we're yes that was Street will be will be improved will be upgraded as the site is platted and only in portion of the part that is platted so it may if the site gets platted in three pieces it'll be three pieces is that Street gets does that mean the concept and the concept for the planning that your associate showed us a little while ago was there going to be an entrance to the property from genie Street or was it only be from the front of McKinney that concept was the concept whoops I need to find the word our first one go there we go I know it's small and hard to see there would actually be two accesses to genie Street we're proposing another access from McKinney Street as well didn't touch on the first presentation there last two things specifically talking about concept first of all there is an existing tree wall that surrounds the entire property that does shield it from the neighborhood as it sits now so it isn't like looking over raw land from the neighborhood side is the idea you've talked about a proposed screen is the idea to keep the original facade of the trees or to put up a brand new brick wall or I don't know a lumber eight foot fence what's the idea here on generally the idea is to work with the neighbors and replace their fences in place with a newer better fence that would be a privacy fence instead of trying to build a second one right next to theirs and that would give us better opportunity to maintain the tree lines and we do have a pretty good sized landscape buffer there and with the top ography of the land it'll be a lot easier to maintain the existing trees along the edges of the property will that pertain to the long the edges of genie Street as well probably not because of the city standard Street sections and the reason need to dedicate additional right away and widen everything in there and utilities go it's just almost impossible to save those great and the last thing I think to to you mr. Allison as well as you mr. Dotson number of dwellings that we could possibly project when it comes to the plotting process you mentioned that even though and the the new use that we're looking for from NR six to NR MU 12 in our unit 12 requests or has the allowance of 12 dwellings per acre in our six is six dwellings breaker you guys thinking that the platting is going to be looking more like six dwellings per acre versus 12 well if we get the zoning approved there won't be any dwellings and sorry I should I should rephrase it units the ability for if you're talking about talking about building these as professional offices units per acre is dwelling units it is not building units okay and you can see in this plan we're looking at on that upper portion probably six buildings total okay that's what I get 7500 square yeah vernacular vernacular wrong but that the same in end goal six total buildings essentially as we're looking at and what we have on this plan is basically what we're anticipating in that upper area okay no other questions Commissioner a couple more questions still Commissioner Roselle thank you chair I've been taking notes this entire time so if this seems like a stream of consciousness and my questioning I apologize the overlay that you submitted to us was that completed before the neighborhood meeting or in response to the neighborhood meeting in response to the meeting okay and they were specifically discussed with those present at the meeting line by line we said we could do those and we did I think echoing other commissioners I think the overlay is gracious I think it's a it's a pretty good attempt to mitigate some of the concerns city staff brought up several times that the main issue is use that they don't want the use there was was used talked about in the community meeting did they bring up the opposition to a office use no they brought up an opposition to bars and clubs and things that might operate late at night which NRMU 12 does not allow at all they were concerned about bail bonds type facilities and while there's no restrictive of the use of those that specific those facilities tended locate on-street frontages closer to the jail the better because people walk out of there and go straight to the bail bonds but they need the the road visit main road visibility not the background visibility did you bring up the general office use in the community being as your intention yes we basically brought up this concept site type plan and there was no opposition stated at that time they were against the office use none had stated at that time no okay I have a question for Julie why before I do that I had one comment this this has no bearing on this but as I'm looking at the site plan I wrote up in the work session mr. Allison you were there that there's a very similar development like this off Hinkle just north of University across from the church behind the chase building and they structured it where the drive and parking abutted the adjacent properties providing a little bit more buffer from the fence lines the actual building so I don't know if that is possible or if that's desired I'm not sure I don't know how to plan that but I'm wondering if the drive on the east side and the buildings were flipped if it actually would provide more buffer if there's an issue with cars driving I don't know but I just it works in the other development in terms of spacing sight lines from the back door of the house the buildings are pushed for further away from the property line again that that's not relevant to this but in this weekend this I wonder if I didn't be more manual to residents to flip that I am very familiar with the facility you're speaking of my personal opinion is that this is a better layout because you have landscaping in the back we have any large mechanical type equipment has to be at least 100 feet from the property line which would kind of put it out in the middle of everything we've limited the units to residential style units and requiring them to be screened with screening walls there's more opportunity for landscaping and you have you just don't have the lights from cars pushing into backyards etc so we we feel like this is better I haven't heard anything from the residents directly related to that I leave it up to the professional to decide that just my thoughts miss why can I shoot two questions please you had mentioned that there's opposition because of the office use but it doesn't sound like the community was advocating that can you tell me about the background from staff having an issue with the use of office sure so so in terms of these infill areas where you've got established neighborhoods and then you've got development opportunities adjacent to it and I know we've seen cases like these come before come before this Commission in the last year we have to look at those neighborhoods and and and and ensure that often when we have these cases where commercial development starts encroaching in those neighborhoods it nibbles away it nibbles away at the edges of it and that and that when it nibbles too much then it compromises that cohesive development pattern pattern of that neighborhood and so we often need to in often in some instances like this one where it's really it's in it's it's centered in that neighborhood we want to hold the line to ensure that that neighborhood stays protected and that it and that those those those residents are that their existing development pattern and the uses that are in the area are maintained and and that there isn't that nibbling away so that one property falls and the next one falls and so that that's really our intent and in terms of of a mix of uses and an office yes often those things can be compatible but we have to look at it in a situational setting so in terms of this one you know I we we looked at the existing zoning pattern think you know that NRM U12 and that NRMU the way it's existing kind of makes sense in this area because there is a need for office space and we want to ensure that that those that it develops in a way that's appropriate for the area but but in this situation when it 's it's so far into the neighborhood that's when it becomes problematic that you're bringing in that office use so so really that was our intent was to just hold the line maintain and protect that neighborhood against encroachment and against the nibbling away at the edges to that it's compromised to a point where it would change the character of the neighborhood and sure if I can just add to that really quickly I know we reference the development on H inkle and University I'm looking at the aerial and the the line is straight across as far as residential versus commercial so as Julie was talking about encro achment there is Lee there isn't any in this area specifically as we compare it to this particular one you're talking about like they haven't this is more like a peninsula in correct okay now that was one of our considerations thanks so I have two more questions do you know of the eight oppositions we have four of them are not homeowners their investment properties do you know of the ones within the 200 foot boundary which one of those are those were homeowners or investment properties do you know the breakdown I don't in terms of we sent out you know we send out notifications for property owners within 200 feet and then residents within 500 feet property owners are the only ones who get that notice that allows them to submit for a response now we did we did have some response from outside that 200 boundary so they got the notice somehow but but in terms of who resides in that property I don't know what the breakdown is is whether they're who's residing there if they're homeowners or if that's a rental property is that your question did I answer it is and I could look up the addresses and with that is there follow-up from these responses one individual said they didn't want to sell the property it sounds like they might have been confused yeah we sometimes get responses back from neighborhood where there's some confusion on what the actual request is and so yeah did you did you follow without I haven't followed up with them now so my last question is this yes sir on the use case of retail sales and service as well as professional services and offices on those two uses is there hours of operation limitations we don't have our we don't have limitations on the hours of operation what we do have is a limitation on the gross square foot per lot so each lot I believe that's 5,000 for the retail and 10,000 for the office space thank you per acre per lot per lot and there's three lots here well it depends on how they end up eventually flat property thank you Julie's are my questions sure commissioner back thank you chair my questions will go back to the applicant but as they approach I would just like to make comment about that 200 foot versus 500 foot those are kind of arbitrary limits it's not that the people outside the 200 foot within the 500 foot aren't impacted negatively or positively either way so I just want to you know don't want that to be a factor thinking it's not important people in the 500 what was people beyond the 200 foot limit thing now it was mentioned and I admit I 'm not the expert here on what's affordable when you build and what you can build there so I defer to the developers here but affordable housing as Commissioner Ellis pointed out is affected when you do encroach and as Julie pointed out it nibbles away where people tend to sell their property and we lose that existing housing there but I mean you can build 18 lots 18 dwellings there and that includes duplexes is that not an affordable development that you build and make money off of that would benefit that would serve our need for affordable housing in your opinion with the NRMU 12 on that remaining acres there could be no with the NR6 the right 18 units where there's not can't be 18 duplexes no but you're talking about what would people buy they might not buy a house but you could build duplexes that people could buy and rent out as affordable housing no am I again not being the expert here is that we are seeing more rental property coming up in the forms of apartments and du plexes in different places I would have to refer to someone else as my understanding that rental property such as duplexes and apartments do more to reduce the neighboring property values and then apartments I could see I'm not sure about duplexes especially when you're only talking about a small number we were agreeable to something it's been months back where we allowed duplex es to come in and on a corner out on the front right was the gateway to single- family I didn't have a problem with that so there's there's some limits there that could allow that the other thing that you made a point of and I don't disagree with and it's shown in your concept layout is how this can look like it can assimilate into this neighborhood the only major impact that this development have that sets it apart from a residential setting is the extra traffic it's going to bring in and it's it's it's an unstable effect on a neighborhood where it's going to be people that are never the same so that has several different effects on the existing neighborhood and I worry about that too but other than that again I just think you know bottom line is we seem to have still I 'm not convinced that the residents in that area are really for this enough that's why I would I would probably have less of a problem if you did go back and talk to them show them what you're going to do and make these people feel comfortable because this is their home this is where they live but then again along the same lines that the city's pointing out this is something that will diminish that neighborhood could diminish that neighborhood over time I just never went away and so anyway those are my comments thanks a question for staff Julie on the notification map that we have in our backup it doesn't show any of these properties whether they're for or against this proposal so I did my own due diligence while we were listening and our on the paperwork that you've provided for us here one of the homes is at 1427 Woodford that home actually is the only home that backs or butts this piece of property they're in favor of this request the other homes that I looked up the Hedy Street is a street over and I don't know that it's within the 200 the other ones at Campbell another one at Campbell another one at Campbell those are all at the very front part that a back that a but to what is already existing the NRMU 12 not abutting this piece of property so they're already against in NRMU 12 not against NR6 and we're changing it so that they would be instead of abut ting NR6 they would be abutting NRMU 12 they already abut that so I guess my point where I'm going here is we've had a lot of conversation here so far on this item about the neighborhood and the neighbors and what their thoughts are the one neighbor that actually abuts this property is for it the other ones that are opposed to it are actually already abutting NRMU 12 is that correct at least that's what it looks like on my starting to Google addresses while we're up here looking and talking about this I had our GIS do this map today based upon that the responses we've received and I was looking to see I'm showing the one on wood Woodford here and I was but I don't have any addresses on it so let me see if I can the Woodford is in support 1427 Woodford at least on this paperwork says it's in support so I guess more of a housekeeping thing if it's possible as we go forward on future meetings if we can have these opposition or support letters that we can get a better idea of where are they and are they within the area are they halfway across town or where are we so we have a little more perspective as commissioners as to who's in support who's opposed and where are they in relation to the property I think it'd be advantageous for all of us up here yeah I apologize my map doesn't have the addresses on it so I see what you're saying on the Woodford and I just have to check with our GIS department okay well I want to just clarify that because in our backup it doesn't have anything but we've got a whole stack and when you look at them I think the one that's in support is the one actually backs the property so thank you for clarification Commissioner Sullivan thank you on the concept that was up there are y'all proposed proposing just one entrance and exit onto McKinney Street onto McKinney Street yes sir there's only one entrance on McKinney Street McKinney Street being an arterial I'm sorry a collector minor arterial we are proposing but we're having to beg for it TIA is another information with staff to get permission to have that on McKinney otherwise currently staff well until they finish reviewing our TIA staff is only one is to have two entries off of Jamie Street and from McKinney and in your wildest imaginations it becomes more successful than you could ever hope for how many parking spaces and how many people are going to be going into that space on any given day I can't answer that at this moment and we haven't gone to that level of study you know we've done that concept lay out I can't get back to it real quick there it is that shows the the one driveway off of McKinney one off of McKinney that we're we've submitted to the city and trying to get permission to have and then it shows the two off Jamie Street that is proportional regarding the number of parking spaces and buildings we did look at the sizes gosh what a hundred and fifty two okay so so the two looks like parking lots I guess right those two spaces on Jamie or those are entrants and exits yeah it's not it's not shown that way in our or I can't see it in that drawing but okay so and so so what's your your preference would be one off of McKinney and to Jamie is that yes and that's what you're looking for and meet the requirements we could possibly eliminate the northern one to Jamie I would like to point out to we're just zoning an additional three acres to the NR me 12 so all that other is gonna happen understand understand I would just look at them or number of parking spaces and I just saw the one entrance and exit off of McKinney I didn't realize there were two more on Jamie so okay thank you Commissioner Ellis thank you chair I just wanted to clarify the Woodford in favor of request that's a non owner occupant that homeowner lives in Lantana that property owner lives in Lantana that's a rental property the rental property the Woodford property who said is in favor of requests yes but that is a non owner occupant the person who owns that lives in Lantana so that's a tenant in that it's not property owner who's in favor of it but it's an investor okay okay so the actual property owners in favor of it correct okay thank you for the clarification Commissioner Sanchez I just have one question when you had your your neighborhood meeting what kind of attendants did you get did you get quite a few people from the neighborhood or was just one or two if I remember correctly about 30 that's I'm gonna air towards 20 just conservative so you think you got a pretty good response is that considered a good response from a neighborhood when you do work like that I don't know I've had responses anywhere from zero to 400 like that but I think that's a pretty good I would think that you know 20 to 30 would seem a pretty good response and even though we had sign-in sheets we didn 't go back to look at their addresses I don't know if they were from right next door or if they were across town okay Commissioner back thanks chair one quick question for thanks Lee thank you Julie mentioned and did I hear wrong that when the notifications went out they went to property owners only I 'm sorry say again I thought I heard you say a while ago when notifications went out they went to property owners only property owners within 200 feet and residents within 500 okay but I thought the new change would we'd be sending it to property owners wherever they live one lives in Lantana but that all the houses in that area would get one and that means that if they were property owner good if they weren't probably they'd still get that notification you do get a notification as a resident you get a different and Ron may may correct me on this because there's been some changes but how this was noticed and how we've typically noticed based upon direction is a postcard to residents okay and then a letter to property owners the letter that property owners get is this okay and then the and then residents get that postcard to notify them of the case okay that's my concern not so much what it looks like but that everybody that lives within that 200 feet whether they're on a house or not we 'll get some kind of notification from the 500 feet for residents and up to 500 feet - yes okay great great thank you Commissioner Smith thank you chair mr . Allison the invitation to everyone to come to the community meeting how the process of inviting folks out there was that just a blanket postcard was there a 200 foot 500 foot what was the what was the thought process on that we contact the city of Denton obtained the mailing list for property owners and for residents within 500 feet we send out a one-page flyer with a map description of the project and what's about to occur what we're considering and where we're meeting great awesome thank you okay this is a public hearing I have two other cards requesting to speak first will be Greg Johnson in support thank you mr. chairman for my time starts Matt my name is Greg Johnson 319 West Oak Street here in Denton and a couple comments first one I love Julie Julie is awesome we love working with her Julie and I unlike some people in this country can civilly disagree and I'm gonna do that tonight what a dream applicant I've sat up there for many nights and I don't recall ever seeing an applicant who would come up and expose and impose all of these restrictions on themselves which proves which is not always the case he really intends to build office the current zoning that is on the property today I actually voted to approve and I remember sitting right there saying why in the heck are they proposing it this way these three different zoning's on one parcel it made no sense to me when I looked at this jagged line and the deal across the back what was proposed I knew the day I looked at it it would never work mathematically and so Commissioner Beck to your point you're so right we need more affordable housing the challenge with dropping in 18 you couldn't fit 18 lots anyway because you have the street in the middle but whatever number of lots you could fit by the time you pay for a public street to our city specs all the utilities the cost of a lot would be more than half the house so the math just doesn't work which is why it didn't happen and the truth of the matter is now I know why it was proposed that way I think if it would have been proposed in our NU 12 in the back it would have passed mr. Gene Hartman owns this property he's been saving this property for many many years he wanted something great to happen with it and frankly he just had bad advice he had somebody advising him on what they thought they could do with the property they wanted to buy it and what was proposed would never work a couple of points there are properties all over this city larger than this one up against and into neighborhoods that are z oned in our MU 12 in our M use neighborhood residential mixed use as you know it's made to provide those uses that serve the neighborhoods daycare centers offices etc the reason I wanted to pull this up is so here is here 's the houses we're talking about being affected okay well really these about the property these for you know it was okay for NRM you for these to be up against it these are houses in the neighborhood these people over here back up to a huge box that is the county government office that used to be a grocery store these houses over here back up to the parking lot for the courthouse which is a heck of a lot taller than a single family or a single-story office and so while I love Julie the bubble plan the 2030 plan is a bubble plan it doesn't get down to exact property lines and so you know to say that this property isn't compatible with the future land use I'm not so sure but but our planning staff has said for years that offices are the most compatible buffer use between single family residential and retail commercial uses and that's what is being proposed here so I find it odd that that office is okay for these guys to back up to but office isn't okay for these guys to back up to it doesn't it doesn't jive for me there are tracks all over our city like this one and larger that are zoned in our MU 12 with houses backed up to it we have Kroger shopping centers that back up to houses we have self storage that backs up to houses what I have always liked about putting office next to residential is that office people come to work when the residents left and went to work and the office people leave and go home when these people come home and so these offices aren't being used when the homeowners are home but what do office people do they drive up they get out they go in their office they work all day and they leave it's not like a donut shop or dry cleaners and these sort of things which by the way we have dry cleaners and donut shops that back right up to single- family residential that we've approved for years and so I think it's just a bit of a mischaracterization to say that the back of this property shouldn't allow for office so I would respectfully press request that you approve this application and recommend approval of the council a couple questions for you Commissioner back thank you chair thank you Greg for enlightening me I mean that see I have some insights there that I haven't picked up on but nobody's really disputing the benefit of commercial areas next to neighborhoods when you look at this configuration there the depth of this thing going into that neighborhood is what's a little disturbing and I can't help but feel you know again that the argument that it will pick away at this neighborhood is other property owners sell those houses that are affordable now and we lose that all these areas that are non-residential now probably at one time I'm sure were residential and just slowly diminished over time so it's not that I or anybody else is opposed to commercial around a neighborhood area and up against it but this configuration here is is beyond you know just simple next to it's deep into the neighborhood itself so sure and I would offer that maybe you look at if you know we're dr. co everybody knows dr. Cobos I think F ulton Street very similar project it's a office complex on Fulton Street back off of the University Drive you got a residential all around it right it's a very garden office setting single-story to try their christen been there forever to try to off-crescent no I think maybe I can't remember what that other side street is but but you know it's right there off of Fulton Street neighborhood surrounding it and so I agree with what you're saying which is this is an odd-shaped lot okay the but you could certainly go build you could build there's all kinds of things you could build an nr6 that some neighbors might say that seems a little too dense to me and so you know to me again I just think about if I if I look at these why are these lots any different than these lots and and and and the other benefit that I see is well the city hasn't chosen to go improve Janey Street which is deplorable this project it would force them to go build a new street to new city specs which is going to provide those residents a much better access into their neighborhood Commissioner else thank you Jim thank you mr. Johnson for speaking don't you think the house is on Janey Street will be negatively affected they are directly across the street staring at this plot of land you didn't mention those when you were pointing out around there yeah so so well you know typically those who back up is who you know folks are most concerned about you know these over here across the street again you've got you've got single-family residential across the street from office all over this this town and so it's typically when you have a street separating the front of a house you 've got your your site your front yard setback and you got a setback on the other side a screen wall this is not uncommon to see about the city no I just think I mean I think the biggest issue here is the configuration of this land we keep talking about how we have commercial abutting neighborhoods yeah all over the place they're usually a horizontal plot of land and not this vertical vertical piece that cuts right into the subdivision and so in driving this you know when you go down Janney Street and you get to this part of the lot I mean all that's staring at you all around you are residential homes so it's that's that's the big difficulty and I'm sure that's where staff was was as well in denying this is is you're cutting deep into a subdivision not not across the subdivision where you're just cutting this straight line on a handful of houses but you're literally going into the neighborhood yeah and actually I would agree with you if you were talking about a two-story anything apartments you can build two-story duplexes right here you can go 40 feet by right and so when I think about the use I think all these restrictions the applicant has put imposed upon themselves it's a very residential looking product and so when I think about what's the resident going to be looking at well they could be looking at a two-story something across the street and we have a lot of neighborhoods that have apartments that cut up into the neighborhood that are two stories and we wouldn't do that today we'd make them have a setback where they couldn't look down into somebody's house but they're there and and so again with him agreeing to single story with the 40% landscaping I think it's a great use because the reality is that 3.2 acres will never develop for single-family the math doesn't work thanks for asking I had a question for you I agree with what you're saying I also remember when this track came before us a number of years ago and it hasn't developed and so to your point the plan doesn't work it it was going to work it would have already worked I think one of the other issues that I would bring up or just an observation is I can't remember exactly when the courthouse was built there it's been I was gonna say I was gonna guess 20 years so it's been there 20 years and that piece of property has been vacant for 20 years and we're talking about chipping away at the neighborhood if there was such a huge demand and that this was going to be developed overnight and then the neighborhoods going to be raised it would have happened a long time ago we're talking about a parcel that's been vacant never been developed it's been right across the cour thouse for 20 years my guess is it'll be quite some time before this is built out before there's ever going to be demand to try to go and take any of these other homes and so the reality is there's a vacant piece of property it 's been zoned before it didn't work and we have an opportunity tonight to take a look at someone else this idea and vision for this tract to see it actually move in to be developed and become productive versus I believe it's had cows on it for many years may not anymore but I know it has so I'm looking forward to getting to vote on that this evening and if you have any comments I'd welcome those yeah I just want to Mr. Dodson's horn for a second because he has set with us we represent mr. Hartman he owns the land mr. Jean is a icon in our community even cutting hair at the campus barbershop for I won't say how long mr. Jean but he came to us with this property and said what do I do this guy gave me a story he was going to buy it he was going to do this thing it never worked it never happened what do I do and and we sold the we represented the seller selling the law building to the county and as you guys probably know the county is buying everything on that side and when the county comes says I'd like to buy your property you can't sell it because they can get it later anyway but but mr. Dodson came to us and he said you know I want to do something first class and I want to create an office space and if you've ever been on jury duty and you want something to eat you got to go to Luke 28 8 you got to come all the way downtown you have an hour and so he said I want to provide something for jurors where they can walk across the street and grab something to eat there was some comments earlier about bail bonds or restaurants or whatever I can tell you that no retail business of any sort will go anywhere but fronting McKinney because they can't make it if they if they don't have frontage on McKinney so what he has laid out is truly first class he didn't lay out something that would make him the most money it's he's gonna have his own office there and he wants to have others like him come in office there and you know I think this this is one of those where I think sometimes we can get really caught up and worrying about things that aren't real worries and well I think it's important to vet it and you guys have we're talking about a class a project that will do nothing but make I think the neighbors happy they'll have a new street and you'll have single family or single story offices that aren't intrusive in any way to a neighborhood and and you'll have people that are when they're home nobody's there and when the people are in these offices nobody's home and so I think when you look at this property again I can't think of a better project that could ever be presented because the only other thing that's going to work here is apartments you can't develop it for single-family residential and make the math work agree thank you thank you guys for listening thank you for your comments and your time I have another card and again this is a public hearing Greg price I have no other cards wishing to speak on this item this time thank you I'm Greg price I live at 2216 Great Bear Lane here in Denton and one of the things that I want to say in support of the project is the number I'm also a commercial real estate agent and I have met with probably a dozen attorneys looking for office and didn't Texas and there's two requirements that they want I want to be close to the cour thouse and close to downtown and what's available is shrinking the law building sold and every one of those attorneys are going to have to go find new offices because the county district attorney's office is moving into those and they want to be close to the courthouse and this property being directly across serves that currently this property is ag exempt there are cows on the property and it's not producing tax dollars with what mr. Dotson is producing is only going to help the city of Denton I go to an office every day every day I go in there and I go sit down at my desk and everybody's looking at email and it's a very quiet use it's not disruptive I've not seen an office that's really disruptive to a neighborhood matter of fact just like mr. Johnson said that when you go in most of the folks have gone for the day you go into your office and you go home if you keep the current zoning and it gets developed you increase the density of the neighborhood I don't think that helps the neighborhood office is a quieter use it has a less dense use and the timing of folks using the property only makes sense plus the text the tax incentive that'll benefit the city also increases so just want to say that I'm in favor of the use and I commend mr. Dotson for his his project and his plan and that I do know that I represent mr. Hartman as well as far as selling the property and I know where his heart is on what he'd like to see take place and he wants to serve the community for the good I have no questions thank you again this is a public hearing anyone who would like to speak on this item please come forward this time seeing none will close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion or emotion commissioner Roselle thank you chair as I'm gonna motion to approve this before I do I just I was just thinking through everything that's been stated tonight on both both sides and I certainly appreciate the work city does and I can courage Julia is awesome she's a work course and I appreciate the perspective they're bringing but I also hear a lot of positive things from the applicant in terms of trying to respond to the community both in what they've stated as concerns but also needs of the community and as we looked at the the aerial there is I think Councilman Johnson pointed this out there is development everywhere except that plot which is odd because if you go out further there's even more development which leads me to the conclusion that the current zoning or uses is simply not marketable that or something would have been done there so what what the current situation seems in my opinion a little broke if there's not instead of developed so and I don't think this is too far-fetched from what this commission I know what I have approved sitting here I can think back to this commission me included voted to approve a rezoning on University where an Aldi now sits that backs up to neighborhood we also recently approved a rezoning for self storage to go to university and they'll back up to neighborhoods on University I understand it's not a peninsula type situation with the self storage but the Aldi's are certainly right in the middle of a neighborhood and yet this commission deemed those two things appropriate and so with that the applicant has reached out to the community and not only has been willing to abide by restricted uses on the property they actually created restricted uses on the property in response to the communities concerns so all that to say I'm in favor of this project I think it'd be good for the city to have this developed and I think overall the concerns that have been stated by the community have been addressed by the restrictive uses in my experience Lee Allison his group do quality work and so I see no reason that this also too wouldn't be a high quality establishment that's generating income for the city and also productive for the community around it so for that I motion to approve this Commissioner Smith Commissioner Osella pretty much got all the hot of the hot air out of the room for us on that one the thing I'll just say to this is that if I was a developer and I was looking to build a residential development on a piece of land that would be a perfect one for the for the proximity that would be to downtown as well as just where it sits within the city of Denton that would be a prime location for a multif amily usage if of course we've talked about single-family not being mathematically feasible so why is it sat vacant for 20 years so I will say that I'll second this motion especially since that this is the next best option to create this plot of land and so they actually used by our citizens okay we have a first and a second Commissioner Beck thank you chair well before we vote on it yeah I'd like to comment and this is a tough vote it really is I don't disagree at all that the developers come in and has a good project is bending over backwards to accommodate the neighborhood and my heart goes out to mr. Hartman for having property that sit there for that long and having a tough time finding a good use for this that wouldn't negatively impact the neighborhood and I'm not sure that this project will but I lean on the side of going into a neighborhood in this manner with the depth that goes into it it encro aches deeper than anything I've seen the need for affordable housing is going to be diminished I still believe as it nibbles away and other people in that area sell off that property I think a code change of this sort sets a precedent for other commercial properties to come in and encroach on residential low-density neighborhoods like this and not only in that area but in other areas of the city and I worry about that and the opposition to to me still doesn't seem like it favors this I bet that's probably the biggest sticker for me I wish I had a better feel how the residents of this neighborhood really felt I'm not sure we've got that that's why I kind of encourage you know going back out one more time and getting people more involved in this and then if we had that kind of positive feedback I would have less of concern for this property shares the front part of it with an NRMU 12 where you can get some benefit out of it office space and serve that purpose without going too deep into the area but again the one thing that this will impact that residential housing doesn't or anything that looks like it is the infl ux of traffic comes in these are gonna be people that don't live there it's gonna be different people every day and I'm not sure it's gonna be all that bad so I would be more in favor of it if I felt like the neighborhood residents were more for this and we had a TIA that demonstrated the traffic wasn't gonna be the issue it is so I'm gonna I'm gonna vote against this before I recognize the next speaker I want a clarification from Commissioner Roselle and your motion for approval did you include or mean to include all of the restrictions that the applicant had presented for us yes it would include the overlay presented to us all of the all the restrictions here on the overlay provided in the backup or part of your motion yes don't need to restate my motion I don't think so we just want a clarification for staff and for the record that it did include all of these conditions yes so thank you for that and Commissioner Smith us and you are friendly to that clarification on your second okay Commissioner Ellis thank you so I'm just having a difficult time approving this I do appreciate Allison engineering groups great presentation and all the speakers I just can't discount the opposition that that I've read I can't discount the fact that it doesn't comply with a future land use I can't discount staff's expertise on this I love the earlier thought of a hybrid development on this where we cannot include those back three acres that encroaches so deeply into the neighborhood I would love to see this piece of land developed it needs to be developed I am very concerned about being developed as deep into a single family neighborhood we cannot regulate who is going to office there we can conceptualize it but we don't know what's going to be in those offices and where so with that I just don't think we've we've dealt with the incompatibility issue on that back piece of the land so I'm just not comfortable voting yes Commissioner Sullivan thank you chair I'm having an issue still understanding why you're gonna put more restrictions in the nr6 has to begin with I just I can't get beyond that part of it and when I think of neighborhood restaurants and people walking to the restaurants I think of Locus Street now where we have a lot of neighborhood restaurants and I don't see anybody walking there because there's no place to park ever and so I don't know if that's if that's what is meant to be in a neighborhood and so what I see is commercial creep that soon we'll be hearing people across the street saying hey I want to sell my house and turn it into a an Italian restaurant or something I mean I just that's all I can see going in here and especially because of the restrictions that you all have agreed to that are more restrictive than the our six that it's zoned as now I just something is doesn't ring right to me so that's I can't support what y'all are requesting I mean under different circumstances it might be a great idea but I just can't do it the way it's been presented today okay Commissioner Sanchez I think you've done a great presentation on on why we should allow it and at first I was against it but I think the more I thought about it and the more I listened to you all I I changed my mind and the reason is I personally have an interest in that area and and like everybody else I've seen years and years where that lot has just sat there and and I don't think and across the street on on on Janey if you look at that was on the west side of Janey Street many of those houses are in really poor condition and I would think that one day somebody might buy those and maybe make make an offer make offices out of them but McKin ney Street is a very important because that area because it's close to the to the courthouse I think it's very important to like you mentioned is put offices in that area it's a big neighborhood so that's just those houses were built years ago the area has changed has changed drastically and I think we have to meet those changes and it's not going to hurt that neighborhood because that neighborhood overall is pretty good size I believe and so I'd like to say I'm with I support the project Commissioner Roseau thank you chair just wanted to respond or maybe bring up some points if I understood this correctly I believe I did the applicant held a community meeting which I don't think is required to do so they voluntarily had a community meeting based on the reaction when Commissioner Ellis asked if it was a good turnout or maybe it's Commissioner Sanchez asked is a good turnout the response I got it seemed to communicate to me that that is a great turnout for a community meeting they brought up eight items of concern that the applicant noted and brought to our presentation those eight items so I believe they listened to the concerns that the community 20 plus brought out and responded to each of them and they even put a table on how they're gonna respond to each one of them and so it's hard for me to hear that we don't know what the community thinks because I don't know what more the applicant could have done or the Commission could have done and having this meeting tonight to acquire the opinions of the community they did acquire the opinions of the community that that desired to be vocal and they responded to all of them and answered all their concerns and so with that we also have looks like seven oppositions three from homeowners when including the people that were spoke tonight we have eight in favor so if we want to look at that there's more in favor than an opposition if we just look at respondents I want to be correct in me saying how many in favor in the response yes we have the applicants included yes so in total the people that we've gotten feedback from who decided to come here tonight and the responses mailed in are in favor and so the community issue that Commissioner Beck brought up I just it doesn't resonate with me considering the work that's been put in and then Christian Sullivan brought up the idea of he doesn't understand maybe understand the requirement of buddy putting the more restriction is so they cannot build offices in an R6 it's not possible they have to have a zoning change to build offices so that's why they're asking for a zoning change is they want to put an office instead of duplexes back there but with that restriction they can't put restaurants in the back that's prohibited by NRM U12 the restaurants could only go on the front MRM you so the zoning change is going to provide them the option to do offices only not restaurants back there the restaurants would be up on McKinney which McKinney area has a couple restaurants to the West but certainly none convenient for the individuals working at the courthouse or I just served jury duty and good luck finding food so that I understand what the need is in the community and so again I've already motion to approve this but I think there's a lot of good reasons for this Commission to send this forth to the council for approval Commissioner Ellis thank you chair okay so into in response to Commissioner Rozelle as far as requests and support I mean in favor of this I mean it's the broker for the property and the two in favor we're the property owner and an investor in the area so we have all opposition who as far as people who live there so nobody who lives there in the area is in favor we don't have any of that except for the one investor who lives in Lantana and bought his property this year also wanted to state that Commissioner Sanchez pointed out my concern beautifully when he said perhaps those properties on Janney Street will sell and become offices that's exactly the point I'm trying to illustrate not to necessarily make this lot single family homes but that the existing single-family homes that are affordable albeit not pretty but affordable either to rent or to own by encroaching like this with commercial property you absolutely introduce the demise of those single-family homes to become commercial property which is great if you're an investor owning one of those properties but not great to creating less single-family options in our city that's what we don't need here Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. I would just like to point out the obvious thing that we have parameters set for us through decisions made by citizens city staff and others that protect neighborhoods like this for a reason and it's to help guide growth if we dismiss these without deeper consideration about neighborhood consensus for such a change I think we do a disservice to the 2030 plan and the other efforts the future land use map and all those other things I again you know this is an excellent plan but it encroaches too much in my opinion and I just wish there was some other way we could work with the developer and the owner that would benefit us all but again the sense that we 're going in here and I'm just not thoroughly convinced that the people who live in this area would thoroughly approve it. Commissioner Sanchez. I would just like I would just like to state that some of these older neighborhoods like that like the one on Janie especially on the west side of Janie Street a lot of those houses are pretty much falling apart and there I believe there it won 't be long before those houses have to be replaced and those neighborhoods have to have they have to be renovated and some of this new ideas have to be brought into the neighborhoods and not just let them well this is the way it 's been for 50 years or a hundred years because those those neighborhoods are going to deteriorate and that's why I think projects like this will help the neighborhood. Okay I'm going to call the question I don't see anybody else wishing to speak we have a first and a second before us for approval with all of the conditions as proposed by the applicant so I will call for a vote on the board. Motion carries four to three. We have one final item I don 't know if folks want to stay or if they want to clear the room and if we need to take a break or if we want to try to press through our last item this evening. Okay we'll take a quick break at 850. Okay we are back from our break and we'll call us back into session at 9 o'clock and at this time I'm going to reopen the public hearing for item C which is DCA 17-0010 and I believe Jim Jenks is going to make this presentation. Good evening this is a follow-up presentation to the one that I made a couple weeks ago and I will start by saying I will just very quickly recap what I presented on the 13th and then show the discuss the issues that came up questions that were raised and research that we've done and findings that we've come across. As you all know the city is in the process of a very thorough analysis reevaluation of our codes our criteria manuals our development processes and our processes to get into construction we are trying to update them streamline them make them just better as far as serving the development community while still protecting the city's interests this is a part of that effort. The objectives again what we're looking to do here we get frequent requests that we file plats earlier and I can talk about the particulars of that we think that this may be a way to achieve that also we get frequent requests from the development community to file plats prior to the developer having to enter a contract with a contractor and then also we're seeking to eliminate separate whole harmless agreements which would simplify the process and also as we discussed some a couple weeks ago this is to help us get into compliance with the section of the Texas local government code that that I've quoted here that states that the developer must execute a performance bond for the construction of the improvements to ensure completion of the project. Right now while the developer is one of the three parties named in our what we call our three-way development contracts it's almost always the contractor who is named on the bond. This is our current process if you can see here the point at which we can current and this is this is per the way our development code is currently written we cannot file the plat until the developer has got his plat approved by PNZ and has executed the three-way development contract with the city and his contractor. Also I have shown on here following that stage following that step is when they can get their whole harmless agreement executed and by whole harmless agreement I'll explain that basically our code stipulates that no private improvements construction can be started before all the public improvements that are associated with a development project have been completed. Our code does allow in the case of multifamily or commercial it does or industrial it does allow a developer to enter into a whole harmless agreement basically allowing concurrent private and public improvements construction. The agreement basically which is signed and filed at the county basically formalizes that the developer will hold the city harmless if we were to hold withhold a CEO certificate of occupancy because his public improvements have not been completed. What we are looking at moving toward is basically splitting our current three-way development agreement into two-way development agreements. One being between the city and the developer after which we could file the plat. The next one you can see filing we think we would be able to file that plat much sooner several weeks sooner than we would if we were to hold plat filing till the developer entered into an agreement with a contractor. What we would propose is having a separate agreement between the contractor and the city after which we can have the pre -construction meetings and get into construction. So that's a recap of what we've discussed before and so there are some very good questions raised by the commissioners at the last meeting as well as by the public and I'll list some of them here. What is a developer's capacity to get bonded? Contractors typically do. Developers you know there's often smaller entities how likely are they able to get a bond. What do other cities require and could there be guarantees issued to the developer and contractors such that the related expense of the bond or the guarantee is not doubled so it's not redundant because that can be an appreciable cost. Also would the city consider allowing single-family residential i.e. houses to be constructed prior to completion of the related public improvements i.e. would we be willing to issue a hold harmless agreement for single-family residential as we do for other development types. We've done quite a bit of research since our last meeting and it's still ongoing but we've done quite a bit thus far. We've contacted about eight sure ty companies, various agents, vice presidents of companies got a lot of good information from them. We've contacted at least nine cities throughout the Metroplex and Texas and what the surety companies have told us there are cases such as the one I mentioned a couple weeks ago at our meeting. We do hear of cases in which sureties issue performance bonds to developers. That seems to be less common than the case of them issuing those bonds to contractors. Basically for a surety to issue a performance bond to a developer they typically require that the developer signs personally. In other words not as a newly formed LLC. They've got to demonstrate a good fiscal track record. We are finding, well we're finding from cities and from the surety companies, many cities are now allowing developers to provide a fiscal guarantee in a form other than the performance bond. For example in the form of the irrevoc able letter of credit from a bank or what some cities call a subdivision and maintenance bond which is similar to performance bonds just names the developer or an escrow agreement where they put up the money and it's held in third-party escrow and some many of the sureties actually recommend that the cities require that the developer provides such a guarantee and they are more readily available to developers than performance bonds are. That's and that's not to say that every developer would be able to acquire every such guarantee but they they have a better chance many of them especially the smaller ones or the newer ones have more access to these types of alternative guarantees than a performance bonds. And as far as the feedback we got from other cities it's kind of interesting there there is no sort of typical sequence or procedure or protocol that we have encountered. The requirements can vary quite a bit from city to city. For instance some cities will not file the plat until the developer has constructed all Israeli public improvements. Some cities do not require development contracts at all they just simply require the developer puts up a bond. We're not recommending Denton go down that path but it's just kind of interesting how different some cities are from each other. Many do in our research we found many of these cities do offer these options that I mentioned as to what form the developer guarantee takes. Performance bond or subdivision development bond, letter of credit, escrow account and there's others. There's a couple notable examples that I wanted to share because they are they are from cities that have some some policies that are similar to what we're exploring and we're trying to make we're hoping could work here in Denton and trying to Institute. One is Georgetown it's a smaller city than Denton but it's growing very quickly and the other is San Antonio a large city. Georgetown in the Austin area they allow the plat to be filed prior to the completion of public improvements once a fiscal surety has been issued. So that can be not just the performance bond board that could be a trust agreement which I believe is similar to an escrow agreement. Irrevocable letter of credit or like as I mentioned performance bond. This one issue or concern or request that was stated at the last meeting was would there be a way in which the lot home lots could be sold this could could this be structured such that home lots could be sold prior to completion of public improvements and this would help facilitate that. In San Antonio they won't approve the plat until the developer signs the performance agreement. It's a it's just a short three page agreement and again it 's by the developer and it ensures that they complete the public improvements. They will allow for an approved plat to be filed before the public improvements are completed if the developer provides his guarantee within three years of plat approval. So again that's and they like Georgetown and others allow options performance bonds, irrevocable trust agreement, standby letter of credit, cashier's check being some examples. And they informed us that they they get the developers that they deal with they find that about half the time the developers prefer to the defer the construction a little bit and but are anxious to get the plat filed and I think mainly that's for two reasons. One is because often a developers financing is tied to the milestone of plat approval or plat filing and then also in many cases they would like to start selling lots that are that are planted. So basically I wanted to I propose coming back to you one more time if that would be all right on October 11th so maybe we could I suggest a continuance tonight. I wanted to give you a high-level presentation on responses to your questions what we found in our research in a nutshell we do our findings are such that I think we can I think we can and should continue on the path we're on as far as what we 're looking to do it does appear to be feasible. We will be working very closely with legal and others as we finalize this and the actual contract and bond forms are prepared and revised and I I would ask that I be able to make one more presentation to you in another continuance to the public hearing at the October 11th meeting. One other issue or question I wanted to address or perhaps more than anything tonight just discuss and explore a bit more is there was a there's a question from from the PNZ at the last at the last meeting about or a request that we consider in our amending in our process of amending the code that we consider allowing or issuing hold harmless agreements again that's the allowing the simultaneous private and public improvements to be constructed for single-family residential which is currently the type of development we don't allow it for per our code. I've discussed that some here internally with our managers in our building inspections department in our public works inspection department it hasn't been has it doesn't seem like it's been a request that we receive frequently but I wanted to hear in our public hearing maybe can request that we open up for a little more discussion tonight as to what the concerns are there or what what is hoped to be achieved . I'll take the help in the room. My question was just simply in bringing this question up is we allow it in other applications we allow it in commercial projects we allow it multifamily and the question is why don't we allow it in single-family residential. I think there was some initial conversation about the timing of it and and I think it if it's going to be considered it would be under and fall under the same exact rules that it applies with commercial and multifamily is until the streets or concrete or asphalt whatever they are just like with multifamily and commercial you can't go out there and begin doing construction that it's a fire ingress egress fire marshal type of an issue and it just looks to me like there's an opportunity if the city is open to that and feels comfortable with it that as residential subdivisions are finishing up just like with commercial and multifamily developments that there would be an opportunity for the builders that are going to be building those homes to come in and pull permits and begin construction while you're finishing up the last items that are on the punch list for substantial completion the city gets all the funds for the building permits all the impact fees upon permitting so instead of the city having to wait another number of months for those substantial completion punch list to be completed permits can be issued city collects the fees the revenue builders get started the homes aren't ready to be occupied typically for four to six months construction depending on what time you know how large the home is and how long it takes to build it so it just seemed like it's a little bit of an efficiency area that we could take a look at that city gets revenue sooner homes start being built sooner and you have a time frame instead of residential dirt is sitting there trying to get completed before you can ever begin and then you've got a four or six month construction period to even ask for a final inspection or CEO that some of that can be done concurrently so it was just a question because I know we allow it in other areas is if there was a particular concern or reason why single family is singled out and not allowed to do that when we allow it in other places as long as under the same rules as far as fire safety and access and all those same types of things that have to be in place for commercial and multifamily so it was more of a question and a suggestion looking at all parties involved city revenue piece of it developer home builder as to how those things might be looked at from an efficiency standpoint is how can we make it more efficient and it's still a win-win for everybody that was my point in bringing it up thank you chairman that's that's very helpful we will we will continue to explore that internally and report back to you to the Commission on that I think our initial thought or I guess the thing that first comes to mind is thinking of say a subdivision a large subdivision with a network of streets and our utilities are under the streets that typically typically the sequence of construction for the public improvements would typically be the grading of the streets the utility installation the then the pouring of the streets and the curing of the streets and not and fairly in fairly soon after that the project would typically be accepted but I understand your point about there is always with every project a time period of sort of finish up takes longer for some yeah longer than everyone wants I realize that and in that time being that the streets are be poured and cured and everything just I you know I could see how this the lots could be accessed for private construction so we will continue to explore that and get back to you and again I appreciate the clarification thanks for entertaining the question and doing some research on it the next steps for for the staff is to generate the revised development contract forms and related bond forms or forms of the guarantee I'll be working with closely with legal department as we as we finalize those and to decide upon the allowable forms the guarantee would we allow all the options that mentioned that that other cities allow that's something we'll be looking at in depth and then as I mentioned we will be presenting that at a future public hearing they'll be you know the one on anticipating on the 11th for PNC we have one that's currently been advertised on October 17th for City Council that's the extent of my presentation I'd be happy to answer any further questions okay well I know we're gonna need to get a motion on the floor and I just make a quick comment before we get a motion I'm like the fact that city staff has taken a look of adding flexibility I think that's a great attribute that we should take a look at is trying to figure out ways and giving people options to be to meet and be compliant with our code rather than there's one way that you can do it because one way doesn't work for every project and so I want to come in staff or take a look at the options and doing the research and trying to come up with a plan that's not a one-size-fits-all that gives people some flexibility and some opportunity to look at other ways to meet our code so I appreciate the effort because I think that's the direction that our city should go in is finding ways to be creative and flexibility in working with the development community just to be able to make some of these projects go a little smoother get done quicker less costly for people and then there's more room sometimes in those projects to provide amenities to our city versus some of those opportunities get lost because of ineffic iencies and additional cost that that money could be better used it benefits other parties and specifically the city that those funds get freed up so with that I'm gonna look for a motion for continuance Commissioner Smith thank you chair thank you mr. Jinks for your presentation and thank you for the hard work on this I make a motion to accept the request for the city staff for a continuance on the subject to the October 11th P&Z meeting okay commissioner back approved second we we have a first and a second for continuance to October 11th seeing no further discussion we'll call for a vote on board the motion to continue carry seven to zero that will take us to our final item this evening our project matrix mr. chair yes I just want to keep can we get a clarification in the minutes that it's not a motion to approve as stated on the agenda it's a motion to approve the continuance and we'll have to modify that in the minute okay thank you legal for the clarification commissioner Ellis thank you chair we're on the matrix right yes okay thank you that 's what I figured so I'm just gonna be a broken record and talk about signage and these notifications and that did we change anything I mean when I drove by the lot that we had a lot of discussion on today on Janney Street there was no sign anywhere on that piece of property that talked about a public hearing for a zoning change with regard to the property on McKinney still the teeny tiny little sign that you can't read so where are we particularly with creating some kind of a notice on this property that can be read when you're going 50 miles an hour down a road I'll address that sure the schedule is starting on October 1st we went to City Council and we adopted an ordinance to adjust the fee so that was first and then with that we wanted to market the fee change and also the sign posting new sign size and where they posted as well so we can do that concurrently with the sign ordinance that was just passed or the fee ordinance that was just passed so starting October 1st we see new signs this we have to do something right so we right now we're currently advertising this to applicants so that they know in advance and so that they're not caught off guard that they have to post these signs they are going to be responsible for obtaining as well as posting these signs from here forward from October 1st forward of anything that is correct so so what are applications we get you know starting October 1st these individuals will know in advance that they will have to post signs with that's hopefully you'll see okay so anything prior is correct would not so hopefully in a month you'll see some signs that are much larger than what we currently have okay excellent thank you good question anybody else okay thank you everyone with that I will close our meeting this evening at 925 thank you everyone