January 24th 2018 this meeting has been duly posted and we
have a quorum
present and I will call us to order at 405 our first order
of business will be
to go through and receive clarification of agenda items so
does anybody have a
question on the consent agenda?
Nothing? Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair you know I
just had a quick
question on 3A.
Sorry Haley. You know it just talks about that sewer
conventionally again in a note.
I assume that it can be. Yes. And where it's located and
that's gonna be taken
off eventually. Yes ma'am with this being a preliminary
plat sometimes those
standard notes just get left on there but there will be
sewer service to the
site and that won't be on the final plot. Okay good deal
thanks.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. Just I'm still a little
foggy on E here the
conveyance approval of the conveyance plan. What exactly
are we doing here?
This is a conveyance plot so it is being plotted just to
reconfigure the lots for
the sale of the property. The conveyance plot doesn't grant
any development rights
for anything at this time so it would still come back and
be preliminary and
final plotted. This is just moving some lot lines around
for the sale of the
property. So it's a solid lot now we're splitting it up? It
was previously three
lots we're just adjusting the boundary lines of them a
little bit but you can
see kind of in the gray area on there there's the original
lot numbers. Okay.
Got you. Okay thank you. Anybody else on consent agenda?
Okay thank you Hayley. We only
have one item on our public hearings tonight that will be
item A. Shandrin if
you want to walk us through this item?
Good afternoon. It's good to see you guys. Yeah. So this is
a rezoning request for
property located on Audre Lane Z 1726. It's approximately
13 acres and they are
requesting to go from NR 2 which is a single-family
residential district that
allows up to two dwelling units per acre. They want to re
zone to an NR 6 that
allows some single primarily single-family use but also
some duplex
and townhome use with a maximum of six units per acre. The
property is located
just southeast of the Audre and Nottingham intersection.
Audre Lane
actually serves as the western boundary and also the
northern boundary of the
property. And just to give you some landmarks the Ditten
Bible Church is
here. Mingo Road goes diagonally through the map and then D
itten Church of Christ
is here. The site is primarily undeveloped although there
are some
limited agricultural uses and it has not been platted as of
yet. Do you want me to
go through the full presentation?
Well we do the shortened version here because I know we
have a number of other
reports to be given and then we can certainly go through
the full if we need
to it in there. Okay we can do that. So we look at two
items, well two major criteria when we
consider rezoning requests. One does it meet the future
land use plan and then
two will the site be adequately served by public utilities
and public
services? Are the roads sufficient? Is the wastewater water
connections are they there and available? Public police
fired EMS, what are the
impacts on those? The first criteria that we assess is the
compatibility with the comprehensive plan and primarily the
future land use
element of the comprehensive plan. And so for this area as
you can tell from the
insert, the area that the subject property is located
within is
primarily surrounded by what we classify as low density
residential and the
intent of low density residential is to promote single-
family detached units
that range from about one unit per acre up to a max of
about four units per acre.
And what we found when we looked at this request is that it
the NR6 zoning in
particular does not is not compatible with what we would
classify as low
density residential. What we typically see NR6 and what we
would call the
moderate residential category which we in that class we see
the NR6 zoning
and then we'll also get into the mixed use the NRMU and
then the NRMU-12s.
In this area we have most of the the construction is single
-family detached.
They are approximately 50 to 60 foot wide lots and really
are consistent with
what we intended for these areas for low density
residential.
So when a site does not is not compatible with the future
land use plan there is
some additional criteria that the DDC allows us to consider
and one of that
one of those is compatibility as we talked about with what
's already on the
ground as far as the construction type, the land use, the
scale. We can look at
those elements to see if the requested district would fit
within what's
already there. As far as those elements NR6 mostly meets
those criteria
where we get the discrepancies with the there's two land
uses that would get
introduced with this new zoning district townhomes and
duplexes would be permitted with the NR6 outright and that
is not consistent with
what's already been constructed in this area. If you guys
remember I think it was
in December there was a case that came before you the Yale
property right and
that that request was basically identical to the one that's
before you
today and council did end up approving that as NR6 with the
conditional
overlay and so what essentially happened is that we the on
its faces NR6 but
with the conditions it's more of an NR4 product so they
restricted the uses to
single-family only and then they actually kept the number
of dwelling
units that would be constructed so to maintain consistency
with the area.
Commissioner Smith. Thank you Chair. In regards to that
case that that one was
something where the applicant was applying it was a little
over four it
was a little over four units per acre and that's why we had
to go to NR6 and
so I get what you're saying the council approved it do you
have any idea what
the applicant unit per acre actual number is I know it's
over four it's
why it's going to NR6. Well actually I spoke with the
applicant for this case
the Audra tract and he's coming in right at four units per
acre so they they are
I'm not quite clear on why they are requesting the NR6 I
think it may have
to do with the total lot counts that they are hoping to get
out of the site
but when I look at it I haven't identified any constraints
like flood
plain or ESA that would keep them from constructing the NR4
even product on this
site. Okay and then the what was the conditional overlay
that was given by the
city council? For the property to the north. The property
to the north. And Haley if you can help me out but
essentially it restricted the uses to only single-family
detached construction
right? Yes. And then it was they restricted the use single-
family only and I can't
remember it was like 4.6 or 4.8 units. They reduced or they
limited the number
of lots to what was shown on the conceptual site plan which
was I believe
about 35 lots total. Commissioner Bec. Thank you chair.
Okay going to the point
where there was an overlay before we got the city council
we were under the
impression that NR6 couldn't do an overlay so what happened
at City
Council? Does that apply now? Has that been a changed thing
? Victor's not answering my question first.
And if I guess if you would if I could revisit that under
my presentation I'll
definitely answer that question. Okay. Or I can go into my
presentation right now.
Well just quick answer though is that overlay an option
tonight? Yes. Okay.
Please continue. Okay so getting back to the presentation
we look at
compatibility with what's already been constructed in the
area. We look at
available infrastructure that can serve the site. For this
site there is
available water and sewer along both segments of Audre Lane
to the west and
to the north. Obviously there will be extensions required
in order for
this site to be developed but that utility is available on
those two
right-of-ways. As far as the roadways that serve the site,
Audre Lane on the
west is currently an undivided two-lane road and the
mobility plan actually costs
for a four-lane divided with sidewalks and bike lanes and
then for Audre Lane
on the north it will be ultimate cross-section of about 65
feet a right-of-way.
And then right-of-way dedications, perimeter street
improvements would all
occur at the platting stage so we're not quite there yet.
Once the site is
more fleshed out we can make those assessments. And again
no ESA. We didn't
find any ESA, no floodplain issues. There is some tree
canopy on the site as you
can see just on the west side as you get close to Audre.
Then some, I'm not sure
what the condition of those trees are but the tree
preservation and mitigation
requirements will kick in once they get into site
development. As required by the
Texas Local Government Code we did public notifications. We
sent 66
letters to the adjacent property owners within 200 feet of
the
subject property. We received six letters in opposition.
Those areas
highlighted in red are the those properties that are
opposed to the
request and that comes that comes out to about 3% so we
haven't triggered the
supermajority at council yet. We sent 173 courtesy notices
within 500 feet to
property owners within 500 feet and then the applicant also
held a neighborhood
meeting last week. So in summary we are recommending denial
for this request
based on it's not consistent with the future land use plan.
It's not compatible
with the existing the surrounding properties and we feel
that an NR3
NR4 zoning is more appropriate. Now we did have some
struggle with this
recommendation given what happened with the case to the
north and obviously if
City Council chose to do an overlay similar to what they
did with the yellow
estate that would be more appropriate. Commissioner Beck.
Thank you chair.
Egress and ingress is going to be I'm assuming Lattimore is
going to extend
into the new area. This street here? Yes. I'm gonna
actually defer to pre-tem to
see if there's any requirements to extend that street. I
was gonna say
because if it does you're gonna have a dramatic shift from
NR2 to NR6 and that's
gonna look weird and I guess that other little vertical
stretch there is that
gonna be a road to? Good afternoon my name is pre-tem I'm
the traffic engineer for
the city. At this stage where it's really preliminary
primarily some of the
something like this comes on we require a traffic study and
definitely it's an
option to extend Lattimore it makes more sense to use Latt
imore as a connection
there but there will be some other connection points to the
side the site
is pretty large. You don't have any specifics right now? No
specifics unless
they have a number of units we can't really define what
kind of traffic
requirements they trigger. Okay but is there gonna be more
than one entrance
and exit? Yes. Okay thank you. Commissioner Smith. Thank
You Chair.
Shandrin. Forgive me for my ignorance is there tree
preservation differences
between NR2 and NR6? Not necessarily. We have some
landscape standards that vary
based on zoning districts but the tree preservation
requirements vary based on
the type of tree, the size obviously. I'm more just worried
about if there's
citizens here tonight that are saying hey we don't want you
to rezone it
because we're afraid we're gonna lose all those beautiful
trees that are backed
up to our lots there. We want to make sure that the
preservation that the
current zoning isn't too much different or different at all
than the proposed zoning.
No the preservation requirements are based on the trees.
And then along
Audre there do we currently have that right away or is that
gonna be
captured the plotting process? Yes for the future mobility
expansion I should say.
For both sections of Audre both on the north and the west
we will get
dedications with the plats. We don't currently have the
full right away.
Exactly. So it'd be smart for us to try to. Well thank you.
Commissioner Rossell.
Thank You Chair. I was actually absent at this previous
northern meeting and so
forgive my ignorance or memory on the minutes but is this
the same applicant as
the north property? No there are two different applicants
two different owners.
And so I know this is rezoning but there hasn't been any
unified one neighborhood.
It's gonna be two distinct developments. Yes we encourage
them to work together
in the beginning but throughout business reasons I guess
they needed to do it
separately. Okay and then the other question I have is I'm
trying to
understand the staff's perspective given council's
consideration. So if we remove
that if staff not okay are not recommending because of the
uses in
NR6 or because of the density of NR6? It's a bit of both
and we don't have the
City Council is and Victor will get into this in his
presentation. The City
Council has more discretion to do those types of actions
than we do. The code
doesn't give us the leeway to do that to add a conditional
overlay as staff or to
recommend that to you. Okay thanks.
Commissioner Sanchez. Looking at this map I was looking at
there's a lot of NR4
surrounding that and then across across Audra there's NR6
and then I guess just
looking at that being that this is a pretty much vacant
land this whole area
is vacant. I was looking at NR6 and it basically says which
these areas will be
prominent feature of Denton's newest neighborhoods and so
this is a new area
most of the old areas around it are older neighborhoods so
I guess my idea
was you know NR6 is something that we're looking at develop
within I would think
because the city is in these open areas that are small that
would be my my idea
because we want to fill in and we also want to make best
use of those areas so
my I guess my question is why wouldn't you develop that
well that yellow section
right next to Audra I imagine that would be business at one
point or over time
that whole area is going to fill in because it's vacant
right now is it
going to be are we looking at NR4 over time because when
was this I guess my
question is when was the NR2 given you know if it was 10-15
years ago things
have changed quite a bit in that area over that time over
that time period
sure that's fair the NR2 if I'm if I'm correct was
established when we did the
city-wide rezoning and a lot of this area was developed
prior to actually the
DDC the current DDC that we have and so the what you see on
the ground may not
completely match what the current code is just because it
was developed prior
but that point you made about the infield is good typically
we see the in
our mixed-use districts and an NR6 as a we use it as a
transition zoning between
maybe commercial or higher density residential and lower
density
residential so a more appropriate place would be where you
see it along
Amingo Road that's a major arterial so you can see well we
would encourage the
NR6 the NRMU the NRMU-12s along this area but typically we
wouldn't want to
introduce that type of density in an established
neighborhood even though
like you're correct these are infield products but we still
would want them to
fit within and be compatible with what's already on the
ground if that makes
sense
thanks Chandrian all the other items that we have in our
public hearing
tonight have been renoticed and we will not hear those so
with that I'm gonna say
that concludes our agenda that will go through in council
chambers and so we
will proceed to our work session reports and at this time I
will turn it over to
Victor Flores for his presentation on overlay districts
well I believe I'm
just guessing that my presentations be maybe fielded more
by my by questions
but I'll just kind of give briefly give a summary as was
discussed City
Commission the City Council approved an overlay district
previously mentioned
development legal was asked and has been asked to kind of
review the standards
for imposing overlay districts it's kind of it's just after
reviewing case law
and discussing amongst our team just the unified analysis
of our department that
the overlay districts are permitted and and that stems out
just be very very
basic and we can guess as far into the details as we want
to go on with
questions but it comes from the premise that the City
Council is vested with
authority to do all things related to zoning and so in
other instances there
are very prescribed overlay districts within the code that
authority to create
these overlay districts is within the authority of the City
Council now the
City Council has delegated a certain authority over to this
Commission to
make similar recommendations to them and so just based on
on that premise alone
it's our understanding joined with case law and another
analysis that we've done
the overlay districts are permitted and it would be printed
permitted in the
case that was just talked about before
limited to what we can find on the permitted uses sheet
then and saying okay we have the permitted
uses sheet which includes everything from max lot size max
building height the
certain users for you know from you know on that like we
just talked about in our
sixes basically in our floor but added in there with townh
omes and duplexes so
this extent of what type of overlay we can create is adjust
to the criteria
that are listed within that within that permitted uses or
where should we start
looking for for resources if we're thinking that an overlay
will be right
in this scenario simple questions you answer yes just stay
with them within
those standards and if I can digress just a little bit to
kind of maybe
explain what was once the position or the communicated
position to this
commission that maybe overlay districts were not permitted
don't know how far
along that that stem back but I can only assume that it was
a progression of a
recommendation given out of caution in this sense is that
when you're not
dealing with overlay districts that are prescribed in the
code it's just
council's job to make those tough decisions on the fly what
is or what is
not within those standards correct yeah that's just I guess
I get right we don't
want to create I know we had a developer here a couple
months back for a P&Z
meeting that we ended up we were talking about creating
overlay district on
something along the future expansion 2499 and he was like
you guys are
essentially creating new zoning at the dais and so I get it
but I just we don't
want to know within what parameters should we be operating
and then going
back to to answer your question and it was a pretty short
pretty short answer
but yes you would stick within those standards and on top
of that you would I
would say the general rule just put plainly is you could
not I use this
example if the standards are to have a six foot fence
around the property you
would not be able to I guess override the council and say
no we want a four
foot fence which would be because you would be able to
recommend something
more restrictive an eight foot fence okay because that
would still satisfy the
purpose original intent purpose of those standards okay got
it so nothing with a
specific direction but more or less that you have like in
this sense like a
maximum right you can't like what would they do within our
six they completely
just removed two uses there I get what you're saying it's
like hey everything
in this zone needs to be four foot fences right setting say
hey it has to
be a parking additional parking yeah or cannot be over
cannot be over this
amount of feet and again I mean my job is to help you know
keep everybody
within within the rails and so again not fully
understanding the reason why the
recommendation of the past was given to to not allow
overlay districts but I can
assume it was out of caution to just for not to get beyond
the standards but you
can within the standards you can establish these overlay
districts thank
you commissioner Ellis thank you chair you may have kind of
answered this
already done I'm assuming you as a legal team had a change
of heart on this
overlay I was certainly someone very concerned after that
meeting because we
were told one thing and then council did exactly what we
were told we couldn't do
so I certainly voiced that concern and so did you just as a
team have
collectively get together and then just decide that this is
something that can
be recommended yes at this level and then above obviously
for a final yes
yeah we've discussed it from the city attorney down to
other land use and real
estate attorneys as well okay so it was just maybe an old
something that was
being used but right and again I don't think that there's
been a variation or
deviation from past but I think what what was maybe
incrementally a movement
towards a conservative side again in kind of creating these
standards on
overlay districts that may be outside of the original
intent of the listed
requirements maybe that's where it came from but in our
discussions we definitely
cross our t's and dotted our eyes and did some research and
said yeah you know
we're all on the same page here thank you
Commissioner Sullivan thank you chair just to clarify
Commissioner Smith's
point the meeting that we had where we were negotiating
with the developer
that's something that we should not have been doing at that
point in time or
going forward or so again I would say on a case-by-case
basis I'm not saying for
me not to engage the developer but definitely I would not
let me say this
way to answer your question directly I would not engage a
developer on
standards that may not be prescribed already now if you're
talking about
standards and heightened requirements on the standards are
already present it's
possible if the council wanted to engage in a discussion
like that that would be
that'd be fine but to go beyond those I guess four corners
of whatever is already
written I would recommend against that thank you
Commissioner Smith thank you
sure so what he was you're specifically talking about
Commissioner Sullivan was
that we were we were saying you know hey there's a camera
what it was but it was
criteria of hey we're gonna remove we're gonna move bars
and clubs out of
permitted uses mr. developer is that okay with you is that
type of
dialogue allowed is that is that that's not gonna put us in
any type of type of
issues there for we're saying hey we're gonna move this is
that okay with you
and the developer says yes okay okay great then in my
motion I'm gonna say
motion to approve with conditions that these two things are
removed I don't
listen the dialogue isn't what's the issue the issue it's
the requiring
requiring of the applicant are purporting to to require of
them to do
X Y & Z when it's not prescribed in the code already
against his own voluntary
will again this is a recommending board so everything is
recommended is is is
final say so yeah is with the council but the dialogue
itself is not the
concern it's again requiring the applicant to do something
outside of
this albis code okay commissioner Roselle on a maybe a step
back on a
zoning case should we be talking about the developer at all
about the use cases
or what they might or might not build again it's not wrong
to have that
dialogue with a developer if it's one of ten things that
you consider well I
think that makes sense but in the situation which we're
talking about a
rezone and the developers requesting certain things and
there so in this
case the developers like yeah we won't put a bar there he
gets that restricted
that's now applied to the zone he could go sell the
property and a new developer
would be under the bounds that another developer negotiated
with this
commission so I'm wondering it's been my premise of the
past two years that on
zoning cases the purported or positioned actual build out
shouldn't be informed
and taking into consideration we should see if that zoning
and that part of the
land and that city is appropriate regardless of what the
developer might
be telling us that's going in there because they're not
bound by that yes
yeah you know you're definitely correct in in that scenario
I guess I'm leaning
more towards because your question is a question specific
to use right right and
obviously our code determines what uses can or cannot be in
a certain area I
think that would be lean lean or getting closer to the
realm of not being within
the standards that you're able to operate out of in
establishing
requirements of the overlay district
Commissioner Smith to add on to I think Victor said their
Commissioner Roselle's
that in that specific case we could see that that that zone
was going to be a
budding neighborhoods there so it didn't really yes we
discussed with the with
the developer we agreed upon and that's a case-by-case
basis we were talked about
but in that specific case I could see that even then didn't
matter what the
developers projected use was going to be for it and then
therefore hey you're not
going to use it for this so we'll go ahead and remove it
but more or less that
we're gonna rezone it that use is there and we know it's a
budding these these
neighborhoods here so no matter what even if the developer
does sell it off
doesn't matter what the developer was going to do with it
or whoever he sells
it to is going to do with it we would never underneath no
one's
circumstances that under no developers direction will
whoever want bars and
restaurants they are right next those neighborhoods so and
then yes and yes
and then to highlight I believe the concerns are more
attached to traffic to
to dense to density and like hours of operation as compared
to the specific
use yeah mr. Roselle I appreciate the clarification I guess
my concern is that
there's always a temptation for myself and from past
Commissioner this the
Commission general to blur the lines between use and zoning
and I think this
quasi ability to zone on the fly is going to increase the
temptation to
engage in developers and negotiating how that land should
be used and I'm bringing
forth as a concern to this Commission as well as to the
legal that I think
there's been times in which on the dais we've said okay how
are we gonna
negotiate what's gonna be there what's not to be there and
we come up with
these really arduous motions right there and in the middle
of discussion and I
think that can be dangerous it sounds like that's permitted
which is fine I'm
just in voicing a concern that I had going forward about
the use that this
Commission takes in that I'd hope it's used with much
discretion well no and I
guess to my one of my very first comments was don't know I
can't pin down
necessarily where where in our history and advising this
board the
determination came down no you can't allow overlay
districts but I'm fairly
confident that it came out of caution as you were
expressing you know the
cautions concerns of us starting to regulate use you know
overriding what
was approved by council right to the code of ordinances but
still I guess our
point today in my in my report is that that option is on
the table like you say
but again you do want to use caution and I mean that's what
I'm here for to kind
of help you guys walk you guys through that when you think
hey we're getting a
little too close to use I'm gonna jump in and then history
and Ron may be able
to add some perspective to my recollection of the concern
in the past
about the overlay districts had to do with the ability to
track them and keep
up with them and so for example and I'll use myself this
when I go online the
city website and start searching parcels and looking at
pieces and go that's
zoned in our six and that's on in our four it doesn't show
up that it has an
overlay on it and so the only way you find out that it has
a use restriction
let's use that term since that's the example that we're
putting out here that
you can't have a bar there is until if you haven't done
your homework you've
already purchased it it sales it's in our six and you come
in to put a bar
there and oh three years ago it had a overlay restriction
put on it that you
can't have a bar there but it's owned to have a bar there
and so I that's just
the history that I recall as to why those were not
encouraged and I would
agree with Commissioner Roselle's opinion that in certain
circumstances
and more being the exception than the rule that we use
these because it it
will make a difficult housekeeping record-keeping process
on every single
track if it becomes that we're going to put overlays patch
work on top of all
these things limiting uses and all these other things just
to shoehorn versus
it's cleanly zoned and you can do anything that's allowed
in the zoning
use in that particular place and that's my recollection of
why that was done
that way and I would ask Ron if you've got anything you
want to add to that as
well for us from your many years of experience and recoll
ection as well
thank you chair members of the Commission we that's that's
accurate
we've identified 35 of these zoning districts that have
overlays or
conditions on them as part of our zoning map or zoning
layers now so sure that
will continue to grow maybe but currently we have 35 just
to help
illustrate what Commissioner Strange has discussed okay
Commissioner Smith since
we're talking about the ability that we have as
commissioned to create them what
is the process or ability to be able to remove them if
there was something like
Commissioner Roselle's bringing up it says we've rezoned it
we've put an
overlay on there and sold is there a process are we able to
remove it or as
soon as it's done said by us and the council also repeats
it and proves it is
it done and written in the history books what we not that
it's done same process
like a reason any other reason so just like it's gonna go
from NR six NR six
with overlay to NR six without overlay correct so that's be
a holdover rezoned
process so we wouldn't want to do it that's not that's not
saying hey we got
up we know hey if we come like it we can we can we can
reverse it we don't want
to do that that looks terrible but you just wanted to know
and in the instance
of sort of the last one you know the neighboring property
we'll talk if you
notice on the on the map that change it had it sort of had
the cross hatches in
it so that's where we're kind of to go back with the chair
was was alluding to
we're really trying to use the full capability of our the
GIS that we have
so making sure that that is documented and then in addition
to that once these
hopefully there's not you know if we want to have a hundred
two hundred but as
they you know as as we get more of them and even the 35
that we have making sure
that in our land management files to through track at our
permitting
software we're now in the process of almost complete
updating so every
property that's sort of encompassed within that that
overlay it's now in the
land management file so so we're starting to get it in
different places
so what happens is you're reviewing you might have 20
permits reviewing a day
and you may not know to look at the map or to know that
this ordinance was passed
so we're now putting it in a number of different places
sort of stop stop gaps
I think that'll give everybody we've got a couple hours
before we go into our
next session to mull this over and then we can see where we
end up on our public
hearing item any other questions Commissioner Ellis I have
a question
while we're discussing this because I do feel like
sometimes this is a tool that's
needed to be able to get a rezoning done for instance that
particular tract of
land we only wanted a set number of lots in there because
the density can be
scary if we just put it on there and you're right I mean a
development
doesn't go with the zoning change so there's always that
you know risk that
if we rezone it it's not going to be what we think because
they've gone under
or whatever sold the land and it becomes something else
that we didn't want so I
mean it is a tool that can be helpful to all the community
the developer and
whatnot so I guess I just wanted to throw that out there
and hope that you
see it perhaps as a tool that that is valuable at times
can use if you if you don't land on whether you want to do
conditional
overlays tonight the other option is to approve a lesser
zoning which is the nr
4 and that still gets them to where they need to be just to
keep that in in mind
responded Commissioner Ellis I agree I think the big issue
and maybe staff has
addressed it has been the ability to track it and I think
that's been one of
the concerns and sounds like maybe with putting it in
multiple places and being
it beyond the GIS map and more readily available maybe it's
not as big of an
issue I know again in past now five and a half years and
quickly getting towards
the end of my tenure here but that's a long time in the
technology world so the
ability to track these has probably changed considerably
from what it used
to be and that was that was the main concern just again
adding perspective
not right or wrong just perspective as to why it wasn't an
encouraged tool for us
to use was the ability to track it and and be able to to
produce it for
publicly for people to be able to keep up with what was
clean zoning and what
may have an overlay on it and Commissioner Sanchez I had a
question you
said you could always approve a like in our four now we
wouldn't do that without
the request of the developer right actually you can if he
agrees to accept
the inner floor zoning you can do it without him having to
amend the
application so you can approve a less a more restrictive
zoning but you can't go
up without him he would have to amend the application if he
wanted like an
inner emu okay Commissioner Smith a chair so that's that's
what this one our
options were given the option five options approve
submitted approved
subject conditions deny postpone or table so that is an
approve of subject
to condition so that so our conditions we're saying are
essentially this on a
zoning on a zoning case our conditions are an overlay which
we want to use
sparingly or our conditions are to approve for a zoning
that is a lesser
nothing greater a lesser density yes okay what happens in
that since we're
talking about these overlays and this kind of discussion
here what happens if
this is a commercial I don't know there's like I say it's a
NRM you in our
emu or an MRE in our you 12 what can you do that as well
does that make sense
where there's okay go ahead yeah so if they came in with
like an inner emu 12
requests yeah we could we could approve an inner emu or a
six or anything lower
than that as long as they agree or amenable to the change
but we couldn't
go into yeah like a cg right I was trying to I was thinking
more so within
that same family of droning correct you want to stay within
there in the
residence but you can go it falls into the mixed uses there
it's not just the
end it's not just the the NR that's eminent to the mix
right so but if they
started it in the emu 12 they can go down we couldn't we
still can't go up
from 6 to 12 okay okay can't okay okay are there any other
conditions we don't
know about none that they want me to share on camera right
now I used to be
a consultant thank Victor's got one thing that's a tie up
on here I think
question was supposed to Shandrian as to whether staff and
I forget who was
whether staff could actually recommend conditions on the
overlay district and
just to support her is that staff isn't invested with
authority to to to make
those recommendations it's again going back to my previous
comment was the
authority the zone is within the city council city council
has invested that
delegated some of that authority to this to this board and
so that's why those
recommendations come from the board and not necessarily the
staff staff just
interprets the code as as it is and since what they have to
recommend and
then it's within the purview of this council to make those
recommendations
okay thank you a lot of good discussion and I'm sure we'll
have some more on
this a little later this evening we've got three more staff
reports the next
one we have is going to be drainage and transportation and
I don't know if Chad
drainage goes first
good evening chair commissioners I'm Chad Allen I'm the
deputy city engineer in
charge of capital project delivery and today I'm going to
talk about the
currently ongoing updates to our drainage and
transportation design
criteria manuals forgive me if my throat cracks I had the
flu last week I'm not
contagious so we're asking you to provide comments if you
have any and
then also consider recommending approval of the updates to
our drainage design
criteria manual and our transportation design criteria
manual so what are the
design criteria manuals these are documents that we create
and we upload
to the city's website we distribute them to developers and
consulting engineers
and they include very technical engineering related details
that allow
engineers to implement our development code and to follow
our development code
our development code basically represents the official
regulations of
the city of Denton and variances from the development code
require your
approval but the design criteria are very specific
engineering procedures and
calculations and values and maps and diagrams that we
provide that allow
engineers and developers to meet the intent of the
development code and
variances from the design criteria can be approved at staff
level for instance
by the city engineer he can approve changes it's
recommended that we review
these documents annually and then maybe we perform a major
update at least every
five years and that's what we're doing right now so we're
trying to update the
design criteria manuals so the main goals of our update
project are to
reevaluate the current drainage and transportation design
criteria and
update them where appropriate to identify development
issues that come up
in DRC and try to find resolutions to those that we can put
into the documents
to clarify and consolidate the design criteria from the
various sources and
then to try to eliminate inconsistencies between the
various documents like the
development code the criteria manuals we're talking about
we have a flood
prevention and protection ordinance we have standard
details we have various
plans around the city like the downtown plan so we're
hoping with this update we
can eliminate any inconsistencies between all of those
documents that we've
identified in the past and then also we want to provide the
development community
an opportunity to have input into this process so a little
bit of background
about the update we started updating our manuals early last
year we started
updating the water and wastewater design criteria manual
the drainage design
criteria manual and the transportation design criteria
manual we're doing this
all at the same time that we're also updating the
development code because we
want to make sure all the documents work together and we
want to eliminate any
conflicts between all of those documents so we're updating
the development code
and these criteria manuals at the same time we updated the
water and wastewater
design criteria manual first and that update was completed
last year in October
it was adopted by City Council last year in October in
August we selected a
consultant T. Nolan Perkins to help us update the drainage
and the
transportation criteria manuals so the update process
includes multiple staff
workshops with us and our design consultant and our
consultant there's
also a review we've conducted a review of other local
municipal requirements our
consultant has met with certain staff with one-on-one
discussions we're having
two public comment sessions we're bringing it tonight for P
&Z
consideration we're having a couple of meetings next month
with developers with
a development community and then in the end we're gonna ask
for the new updates
to be adopted by City Council this whole process involves a
lot of different
stakeholders where we've met and had input from our DRC
staff from our
capital projects engineering folks floodplain administrator
the traffic
engineer this guy over here city engineer the drainage and
traffic maintenance and
operations staff our capital project inspectors our
environmental services
folks and also the local development community so here's
here's what's
happened so far this is what we've done so far in the
process last September we
hired T. Nolan Perkins to help us work on the manual in
October they had their
first workshop with city staff in November they submitted
their first draft
for our review we had two other workshops in December and
then earlier
this month they submitted their final draft that we were
going to issue for
public comment and for P&Z considerations so we posted the
documents
for public comment on January 4th and that's a 30-day
comment period it ends
on February 2nd we posted it on the City of Denton website
we put notices here at
City Hall and then we've distributed to the development
community through our
planning department and through the Denton County
Development Alliance the
remaining steps are to bring it before P&Z tonight and then
we have two
meetings scheduled with the development community in
February we hope to have
all the comments incorporated by February 19th and then the
final draft
completed by the end of February and then early in March we
hope to have
approval by council and then our schedule right now is for
the updates to
be published in their final format on March 9th so here are
the specific
changes that we're proposing for the drainage manual we
changed the title to
the storm water design criteria manual from the drainage
design criteria manual
we've moved a lot of really technical detailed engineering
related items from
the development code and we put them into the criteria
manual that's where we
think they belong so for instance we've moved very specific
engineering related
specific design criteria about design flood frequencies and
street and storm
drain design and easement widths around pipe systems and
really detailed
detention pond design items we moved all of those out of
the development code and
into the criteria manual we've added a decision chart
related to floodplain
fill requirements so that they're more easily understood we
've added stream
bank protection criteria because we're concerned about
erosion of our streams
and creeks we've made allowances for limited use of
detention ponds for
recreational structures like picnic tables and playground
equipment in very
certain areas in detention ponds we've clarified the limits
on floodplain
development to try to make them more clear and we've
simplified our minimum
finished floor elevation requirements and we move those to
the development code
what changes do we not make we didn't really make any major
changes to storm
water policy in the new manual we were just trying to
clarify the existing
policy we're trying to make it easier to understand we didn
't change any of the
design calculations we made no significant changes to flood
plain
criteria no changes to the channel design criteria we
continue to reference
and use the net clock net cog I swim manual and we made no
changes to the our
primary design storm event which is the fully developed 100
year storm so I
believe that's that's all I have to talk about the drainage
manual and I can turn
it over to pre town to talk about the transportation
criteria manual right now
sure go ahead commissioner Alice thank you chair I just a
question does ice
swim need to be in definitions in this manual does it need
to be in definitions
yeah I mean I know what ice one is because Debra shared
that with us at a
meeting before but does everyone does somebody coming from
another area know
what ice one is another community around here in the Metro
plex they would
probably but we can certainly add that to the definitions
if it was a thought
yeah I figured they would know it in the Metroplex but if
they came from another
state you know because I know some people isn't there an
ice one that has
to do with solid waste isn't that acronym used as well so I
do not know
but if it's confusing like that to you it is possible yeah
that I had that maybe
that just needs to be in the definition part of the manual
we can certainly do
that we'll do it I have a comment just to bring it I know
this is always a
an issue at least to us as builders is the ability to fence
easements I know
that that's still prohibited in the in the ordinance and I
don't know if
there's some flexibility that's been discussed several
times if that's
something that can be talked about over the next 30 days to
see if there's
instances where easements can be fence because we have many
many lots that have
drainage easements on them and it becomes a who takes care
of it who
maintains it and all those types of issues for the few
times that they need
to be accessed at whatever point that they are maybe there
are some
possibilities for releases to be signed if people want to
fence them that the
city has to come in there they're not responsible for
putting the fences back
up and people can use those easements and just want to
bring that up or felt
like it's an appropriate time to to bring that item before
you that's this
is definitely the appropriate time fences come up so many
times you know
fences and easements fences in flood plains we really want
to fix the way
fences are described in the new manuals it's one it was one
of our major goals
at the beginning is to clarify and clean up when fences are
allowed if
there's any areas where we can allow fence where maybe we
didn't previously so
we can definitely work on that harder we have changed the
fence requirements in
these manuals so yes please read that make comments on it
during this comment
period let us know your suggestions and after these updates
occur we really want
our fence regulations to be more clear so well if I'm miss
read it in 3.9 be 1b
says fences may not be placed okay so I think I think
previously there was it
was a little bit unclear about fences and we tried to make
it more clear maybe
it's too black and white now so go ahead and give us those
that in those comments
please okay well won't waste the Commission's time okay did
we take the
easy way out and just say no fences ever I think maybe we
did that I think so
okay Commissioner Ellis thank you I'm gonna piggyback on
that because that was
where some of my notes were two on three point nine because
you've got it titled
easements in fences except there's really nothing about
fences in there
other than they're not allowed so my I had a big question
mark like I don't get
the fences part because you definitely haven't spelled out
where they're allowed
you do say that except as specifically provided for below
but then it says in
the storm drain above ground they're not allowed and then
you mentioned it one
time in the closed systems but it's yeah fences needs to be
explored if you're
actually calling this chapter titled that it probably needs
to be spelled out
a little more specific okay absolutely Commissioner Beck
I'm gonna try not get over my head on this but just for the
record the DDC
supersedes criteria manuals correct yes okay you mentioned
you were taking things
out of the DDC and put them in the criteria manual yes are
we weakening the
DDC no I don't think so the development code just says that
the major overall
policies and then the design criteria provides engineering
data to help you
implement those so no we haven't weakened the development
code at all as
part of this process that was not that was not the intent
at all thank you
does that have to do just a pony on with Commissioner Beck
's comment the amount
of time that goes between when we do updates to DDC versus
when we do
criteria manual updates so that we can keep it fresher and
more relevant and
changed it could have something to do with that it was
really more about
taking those really technical requirements out of the
development
code and putting them somewhere where maybe some
engineering preference might
have to come into account and so the city engineer can
maybe on individual
projects make decisions and not have to vary from the
development code okay any
other questions on drainage Chad thank you for your
presentation
all right as as I introduced earlier I'm pre-tem they smoke
traffic engineer for
the city I'll be presenting and talking about the
significant change in the
next five slides to the transportation criteria manual
update and I really try
to encompass the major changes there are some minor changes
and it's all in the
back of material the main thing I want to point out is we
've completely
reorganized the criteria manual the reason being it was
really confusing
cumbersome to follow sequencing was not great you have to
go back and forth
between sections of the existing manual so what we've done
is made it made it
more clear free-flowing step-by-step process to go from one
point a to point
B the major sections that were changed were street
classification and geometric
standards and then the traffic impact analysis requirements
the way the
guidelines are set for traffic impact analysis and lastly
we've added the
perimeter street guidelines as some of you might know that
we've taken those to
City Council approved last October primarily what they were
doing is
clarifying what was mentioned in the roadway impact fee
ordinance and how it
related to the DDC that's the clarification that was
included in the
guidelines we all we did is take the whole section and
implemented in the
criteria manual street classification geometric standards
what we try to do
here is make it much more easier with the terminology with
the type of street
sections the we added a flexibility for design and which
actually we're getting
into the next step which is context-sensitive design
options when
we're looking at streets segments we wanted it to be more
in line with what
the land uses were next to it and as we head forward to
making most of our
streets complete streets which takes care of all the modes
of transportation so
all these different classifications that you look at were
kind of clubbed up
together to give more flexibility for neuro development
when they're talking
about what the cross sections and uses are and I'll explain
a little bit in the
next example I took an example for a two-lane collector
initially we in the
original design manual we only had one particular cross
section that was
brought out right now we're looking at different options we
can actually within
the cross section we can if there is a high parking area or
a low parking area
for example if it's a single-family development with larger
lots they
typically don't intend to use lesser on street parking when
you get into newer
subdivisions these they get more denser higher density f
uses up a lot of street
parking just because the way things are and more parking is
required based on
that we can fluctuate between or switch between these
options so if you have
higher parking demand you would require parking but if you
don't then you can
utilize that space for other modes of transportation make
it more a bike
friendly make it more transit friendly and then obviously
the third option is
medium so we added this whole flexible item it is context
sensitive design and
moving on to the next level which is actually financing and
getting grant
funding for some of these projects street project it makes
it more easier
if we have these alternatives and options built in that way
we can go after
funds that are specifically out there through the federal
government for bikes
and pedestrian improvement and transit improvement so that
that's the line of
thinking that we're thinking of traffic impact analysis
that's the next section
that we updated essentially developments are required to
conduct traffic studies
to look at what the impacts for the traffic's are and we've
categorized them
into smaller developments typically that generate less than
500 trips are smaller
they look into what the impacts are in the future when the
development is
complete but they will also look at five years out of that
and see you know five
years after the development is complete what are the
impacts and what the
implications are for larger developments it's slightly
different they create a
bigger impact bigger footprint developments that are
typically more
than 500 trips during the peak hours and for them we are
not only looking at
immediate future or even five years we're looking at a 20-
year horizon and
part of this is is a two-way thing we actually feel that
the city needs to know
what the timing should be on what when some of these major
street improvements
and the capital projects go in place so we as city want to
know how that it's
going to play at the same time we want to know what part
development surrounding
that area is going to play in as far as finance as well as
other instruments
into this whole thing so that's the reason of setting
Commissioner Smith
thank you chair those larger developments and the 20-year
20-year
right you guys are doing that review for you know long-term
outlook what variables this is not
this is not anything change the criteria it's more just
from my own personal
knowledge what variables are being used to calculate what
of the TIA is going to show 20 years from now
is it just projected population growth that's put out by
you know so demographers what's going on here
so what's happening is the city of Denton has a traffic
model and by that I mean it is a future travel demand model
similar to water or wastewater predictions they have their
models 20
years into future what's going to happen traffic has
similar models it regionally cog has a regional model we
took that model we intensified we modified changed it for
the city so every few years every five to seven years
a cog comes up with new data for the rest of the region
based on their projections we will project based on working
with planning we will change our land use internally and
that model kit keeps on updating and we'll use that as the
20-year horizon
thank you commissioner Ellis thank you chair quick question
when in the development process is the TIA discussion when
does it start that's a good question I might have to look
to planning for that answer it depends
within the criteria manual there are some there are some
bulleted items you know to go and to go back to that you
know it's kind of brought up earlier about you know when
there's a rezoning can we look you know should we should we
be looking at this over the last couple meetings or you
know we have pulled some items off off the agenda
specifically requesting for a TIA as part of the zoning
when we have some with the commercial it's much harder to
predict
because you have such a variety of uses in such a different
trip generation rates with all the various land use
categories in some instances it could even be be lower I
guess residential it's pretty easy I mean we know if you're
changing the zoning particularly for a property that annex
ed into the city it's being assigned the RD5X they're
essentially able to do you know depending on the the number
a handful of single-family residential if you're going up
all of a sudden now to
to six units an acre and you're 900 acres,
we know right off the bat what your maximum's gonna be.
We have one, in an instant I'm gonna get into specifics
of it, it's 950 units, residential units.
We've asked them to provide us with TIA.
And so we're starting now on some of these large projects
to look at that as part of the rezoning.
The SUPs, when we have a specific use,
if it does trigger that, the 100 or 1,000,
then we are now asking for a TIA.
So when it comes in front of the commission,
we as staff can make a better recommendation
and you can make a much more informed decision.
- Right, so in this manual it does spell out
when one is needed, it just doesn't say
at what point one is needed.
So is there, are you using any kind of regular process now
of when you're requesting one or?
- We will be, very soon.
Right now we do PDMs, we're looking to go really
to more of a pre-application.
So at that pre-application, before you formally submit,
you will know that if a TIA is needed.
So all of a sudden you're not six months into the process
and then oh, by the way, we need a TIA.
So we wanna get to a point where everything
is laid out up front, so.
- Yeah, and that I understand.
So let's say, 'cause in here it even spells out
when one definitely is needed.
But is there a requirement for when it gets done,
by when it gets done?
- It would need to get, yeah,
prior to going to any sort of public hearing.
Meaning when will they submit it to the city?
- Yeah, 'cause it's all part of the,
I mean it's all part of the development process.
- Really it needs to come with the application.
- Okay.
- With that formal submittal.
- It needs to, but it doesn't necessarily.
- Not now. - Okay.
- Not now. (laughs)
They do take some time.
- Commissioner Sullivan.
- I'm curious if all developers have a street impact fee
that has to be paid, how's that determined
if it's not, if there's no traffic impact analysis
to determine how many cars are going in and out?
I mean, how's that impact fee determined?
And if there is a calculation that's involved,
can't you work back from the calculation to say,
here's what the impact to the neighborhood's gonna be?
- So, I'll slightly touch on it.
Yeah, the impact calculation does involve
some of the trip generation aspects
of how many trips are generated
and how many trips we'll be using
the overall transportation system.
But what happens is when we looked at the big picture,
the impact fee only looks at larger arterials
and fixing them.
As part of the development, when there are streets
and collectors next to a particular development,
those streets are not being looked at
or considered in the traffic impact fee.
So this is like a combination.
When we do the traffic impact analysis,
it will tell us what is being impacted
by that particular development.
So if the developer chooses to fix perimeter streets
or with, and does any additional offsite improvements
that gets credited towards the impact fee, they get credit.
- So what I think I heard you say was,
certain streets aren't impacted to the point
to where impact fees are assessed,
even though more cars are gonna be traveling on that street
because they're not connected to a bigger street
or something.
I'm not, I mean, it's not logical.
That's what I'm saying.
- What I'm saying is the roadway impact fee
was developed using a set of projects.
They pre-identified all the major arterials
and how they could be improved.
And we can talk about roadway impact fee ordinance
and the way it was set up.
So the projects that are already outlined
in that particular ordinance,
what project the impact fee will be allocated.
There are five different areas that were identified,
A through E, and each area got allocated
different types of projects.
So the projects have already been identified
for the impact fee to be used towards those projects.
So if you're a little small subdivision,
that has a small road, that roadway is not being considered
in the impact fee, that's not under project
under the impact fee.
- So the impact fee doesn't apply to that street?
- It does apply to the project.
- Is money being collected based on that street,
but it's not being used for that street?
- It's a balancing act.
It's being used towards that street,
but there are also other needs that come
before that street is required to be widened.
Say for example, looking at a larger street,
if the need is immediately improving
the transportation network within the area
where the project is, then we apply the fees to that
to improve that and then we'll come up
with a capital project that--
- So fees collected on a small street could be used
on the south side of town, could be used
on the north side of town.
- That's why they have five areas.
So they are divided into different--
- Okay, in area one, fees are collected
because of the new development,
but streets in zone five are being improved
with the money collected from zone one.
- No, you can only use them within the same zone.
- Okay, all right, that's fine.
That's what I was confused about.
- Commissioner Beck.
- Thank you, Chair.
In that handout we got last week,
it states that TIA is required if a development will,
one, generate equal to or more than 100 peak hour trips,
two, generate equal to or more than 1,000
vehicle trips per day, and three,
project the area to be developed,
the area projected to be developed is equal to
or more than 100 acres.
Here's my question, and this kind of revolves around
what we were dealing with on Ryan Road last week,
or last time, where you've got more than one development
that's gone on there.
Is this required of each development,
or is there a cumulative rate if each development impacts
the same stretch of road?
We brought up the fact that we had four different
developments going on on Ryan Road,
but if you're just doing a TIA for the individual
development at the time, we're not really looking
at the bigger picture because all those developments
are gonna impact that particular stretch of road.
Does that make sense?
- It makes sense. - Okay.
- To answer your question, it's a two-part answer.
The first part, the TIA looks at the overall impact,
so it identifies the impact.
The roadway impact fee is collected irrespective
of what is happening to the perimeter street.
So the impact fee is collected for that particular zone,
and at that time, they reassess,
and if Ryan Road is an important street
that needs to be updated, it will move up the list
of the capital projects.
Typically, when developments go in,
they don't dedicate the entire sum that's required
to develop that particular roadway,
so then we have to come up with more funds
to subsidize if we go move forward
with that particular project.
But funds are collected for impacts
to the transportation network by those developers.
- Commissioner Smith.
Do we have a follow-up?
Commissioner Beck, let me--
- That's okay.
- You're sitting over there--
- Just so I'm clear, then there is a cumulative effect?
That is what you're saying?
- Yes. - Okay.
- Right, thank you.
- Commissioner Sanchez.
I know this is pretty complicated stuff,
and I know we can't talk to the public.
You can't get into this whole thing,
but is there something you all can do,
because that's a big issue we get every two weeks.
There's people complaining about the analysis
and the traffic and stuff.
Is there any kind of presentation that you all can do
to explain to people, because we don't know,
is explain to people this road is gonna be,
that's all they wanna know.
Is this road gonna be fixed within so many years?
I think that's something we owe the public,
especially when they come up here.
They wanna know about the road.
It's gonna impact, you're gonna put these many houses,
traffic is gonna be jammed.
That's what they care about.
And I think this is where we have to be involved,
or you all have to be involved,
is spend some time at these meetings
and talk to them about the traffic.
Is it gonna be repaired in five years, 10 years,
or whatever, because that's, I think,
the biggest gist of what we get every two weeks.
- To answer your question, this is where,
and we've noticed the same thing,
and the current transportation criteria manual
does not lend itself towards that,
and we're trying to fix it.
So when the developments go in,
currently we do not know what the impacts are
10 years, 20 years in the future
for that particular roadway,
or when that roadway would be fixed.
With this type of analysis, we'll find out,
say 20 years from now, in 10 years,
this road needs to be fixed,
because it'll be to its capacity, it'll be congested,
and at 10 year mark, we need to be ready
with all the funds to fund this project.
So that's the missing piece that's missing
in the current code, and we're trying,
or in the current criteria manual,
and we're trying to, as projects move forward,
make each project pay and understand and assess
when their project will trigger those improvements.
- I guess my only question, again, going back,
is being able to talk to the public,
and at least make them feel, when they leave the meeting,
that they feel comfortable, rather than frustrated.
We came and left with nothing.
That's all I want, is somebody talk to them a little bit.
This is how we do it, and--
- Yeah, we can definitely do that.
- Commissioner Smith.
- Thank you, Chair.
I think what Commissioner Beck was mentioning earlier
was the fear of having a numerous development
that are being developed on the exact same road,
all happening in some sort of concurrent time,
that not, you know, if there's one development being done,
and it doesn't meet that hundred,
or it doesn't meet that thousand trip limit,
it not triggering.
Not triggering for that one,
and then maybe it doesn't trigger for the next development,
and then the third development doesn't trigger.
So the fear that I have, and what I wanna know is,
at what point in time do we, as a commission,
does council approve development,
and whether it's the final plotting and everything else,
and the city's giving the okay,
at what point in time does, even though it's not built,
even though there's not houses there yet,
but it's approved, at what time does that consideration,
is that being taken into the TIA?
Does that question make sense?
- Yeah, I mean, that consideration will be taken
into the new TIAs.
It will project traffic in the future.
- Even though it develops not there, it'll take it into--
- It'll take, so it will be a cumulative effect.
We talked about the traffic model.
Traffic model will update that information and say,
this area or this particular parcel has been approved,
or plotted for 100 units.
That will already be in the system
before the next one goes in.
- Perfect, awesome, thank you.
- Well, I'm gonna chime in, 'cause I know I've had
on the matrix for quite some time to have this discussion,
and to actually, to Commissioner Sanchez's point,
to go beyond the actual criteria manual,
and actually get into whose responsibility it is
to do these things.
I think, from my perspective, being in the development
business, a lot of things get skipped over
as to what a developer does and provides,
versus what's not being taken care of.
The developer, just for the sake of the commission
and for the discussion, puts in all the streets,
all the utilities at their expense,
and then at the end of the development,
and the final acceptance, gives it to the city,
and now the city takes and owns those utilities
and those streets that are put into the city standards.
So they've paid for, sometimes, millions of dollars
of improvements on their particular property,
and then we have people that come before us
in this commission wanting to know
what the developer's gonna pay for,
for the street out that's up front or down the street,
and they've already done millions of dollars, possibly,
of improvements on their piece of property,
and then paying, since we're talking about houses,
a $2,000 per house traffic impact fee
that goes into the fund to be spent in the area
that their subdivision or development is
to pay for roads outside of their property to be improved.
Am I stating that correctly, how the process works
for everybody here?
- So it's a yes and no.
- Okay, correct, please.
- There is something called a perimeter street improvement
that is directly next to the development,
so that would provide direct access to developments
in the immediate vicinity of the development.
Everything should be updated and upgraded,
and that will count towards your traffic impact credit.
And yes, the remaining part of money that's remaining
will update whatever's feeding the major streets
into the development, so yes and no.
- Yeah, I skipped a little extra piece
about the perimeter street paving,
but yes, I understand that principle as well.
I was assuming if there aren't any perimeter street
improvements that are required,
they pay the $2,000 to the city.
The city decides whether they take the money
and spend it somewhere else in the zone,
or in lieu of taking the $2,000
requiring the developer to make those
perimeter street improvements right there
alongside their property before they accept the
improvements.
- Right, I think the thing is,
the city, when they're looking at this money,
we're looking at a big picture.
We're looking at what these streets are feeding into,
what are the major routes, where congestion is.
So the way the capital projects are planned
in a particular zone is the area of maximum congestion
gets the first look, and then move on so on and so forth,
until it gets to a point where you're not actually
seeing development go up to the congestion,
not the congestion level, but the capacity level,
then those streets don't get pulled in
or rank higher and higher.
So yes, it's a process, and yeah,
the fund is flexible to move around
within a particular zone, not between zones.
- Commissioner Sullivan.
- Thank you.
Here, for example, Ryan Road, we talked about two weeks ago
.
The new development, I don't know what the other ones
have paid, the new development's gonna be paying
a million dollars into the street impact fee.
We don't know where that's gonna be spent on Ryan Road.
Meanwhile, all the streets of Thistle Hill,
all the streets of Ryan Ranch that have been there
for 10 years or so, got brand new asphalt
in the last year and a half.
Meanwhile, Ryan Road is still the two-lane,
bumpy, dangerous street that it has been
for the last 10 years.
Now, am I to believe that there is a plan 20 years from now
to sign the Ryan Road in 10, 15, 20 years
after all the development's been put up
and after it becomes potholes all along up and down
the street, finally, some subdivision that goes in
north or south of the area is gonna then be paying
for Ryan Road?
- No, that's not the answer.
- Okay.
- So what will happen is the roadway impact fee
is collected from all the developers that went in.
Now, what happens is the city goes in and assesses
is Ryan Road at capacity, which it's pretty close
to getting there, then we use that as planning
for our next big capital project.
And obviously, the funds that are collected
from all these developers are not enough
to fix Ryan Road from one end to the other.
From 2181 to 1830, it's not possible to do the whole road
with just the impact fees.
So what happens is then the city decides
that this is a big capital project,
we go for other funds to balance what we got
from the developer and fix the road.
So we've identified other streets.
Hickory Creek is under construction soon.
I don't know, maybe Chad can elaborate.
But we have identified some of these projects
that are going in.
And yes, Ryan Road is on the list.
We'll definitely look at it in our next round for the bond.
- I'm gonna change subjects and bring up something else.
- I have some more slides if we can.
- You do?
Okay, I thought you were done.
You continue and then I'll ask this question at the end
if you don't address it.
- All right.
So that's the last slide, by the way.
We've just simplified the criteria manual.
We've reduced the number of pages, reduced the confusion.
We added some missing information.
And then we've removed redundant information.
There was information that was in multiple locations,
standard plans and stuff like that.
So we've removed that.
So that's the end.
And this is my recommendation.
- Commissioner Ellis.
- Thank you, Chair.
Just a question on the removal of appendix B.
Did that kind of go away altogether
or was that somehow incorporated?
I didn't quite notice how that fit into the new manual.
- So the downtown plan is actually,
those are suggestions by, and maybe planning
can help me answer that question,
but the plan was a planning level document
and suggestions of how context sensitive
design could be implemented.
But what we did is we actually took the concept
and we've implemented in our actual design process.
So we don't need to have those particular cross sections
in place because we were much more flexible upfront.
We've completely removed them.
It becomes confusing.
- Commissioner Beck.
- I have a real easy softball question for you.
Just a general question here.
Are all residential streets bike friendly,
were they're equal to cars or not?
Or does it have to be a certain collector street to be?
'Cause unless it's marked, it's not clear whether bikes
have the same equal standing as an automobile.
- Per law, bikes have the equal right to drive
in the middle of a residential street.
- Yes, and use the driving lane as a full lane.
- Okay, thank you.
- I'll ask my question again.
As we continue to increase the standards for our streets,
is there a place where we cross good stewardship of money
of what's underneath the street?
So the pipe, sewer, water, storm has a 30 year life,
and yet we're continuing to make going from six inch
subgrade, seven inch, eight inch, continuing to build
longer
and more expensive roads, life, to try to increase
the lifespan of them, but what's underneath them doesn't.
And then we're spending and not being good stewards
of the money that we have, we're putting a road in
and we're gonna have to come cut it up and tear it up
to repair the piping underneath it.
- Just to clarify for everyone, you're talking about
the cross section, how deep the road is and the thickness
is.
Yeah, we have, and this is a new thing that we're trying
to do, is we've introduced some kind of flexibility
and it's in different, it's in the standard plans,
but what is happening is if there is, if the developer
feels or his engineer feels that there can be a smaller
section, it depends on the soil conditions.
So if a geotechnical report is presented to the city
that outlines under these soil conditions,
you don't need this pavement thickness,
if we go with a smaller pavement thickness,
it'll still sustain it.
So there are certain options that are being added
and that's where the flexibility comes into play.
And I'm not the person really to talk to, but if anyone,
I think the city engineer can help with that.
- But it's the developer's responsibility to do that
rather than city coming and saying in this particular area
instead of requiring eight inch subgrade, eight inch paving
,
everything else is six and six and was put in 20 years ago
and that's good enough.
It's a developer's responsibility to do that.
- Correct, it is the developer's responsibility to put in,
to do the geotechnical study, but the way the city looks
at it, there are different regions with different soil
forms
and it's really hard for us to have 15 different sections.
So we'd come up with the conservative section
and if the engineers feel that there's a soil
that can sustain the smaller section, we're open to that.
- Okay.
Sure, please come up to the mic.
- I'm Ron Harris with Tignall and Perkins.
To answer that question, actually the utilities
are about the same design life.
A water sewer is gonna last between 20 and 40 years
if you look in the criteria manual.
The asphalt sections are designed for 20 years,
the concrete sections are designed for 40 years.
So they're pretty comparable.
- Okay, great, thank you.
So finally, the slide, we recommend approval
of the updated criteria manuals, both the stormwater design
and transportation.
- So we'll go to public comment now for the next 30 days
and then this will come back for recommendation to us
or does it move on to city council just so we understand
the process? - I think the public
comment period started January 3rd
and we're currently in it.
We will have some developer meetings and outreach
with the developers to get their feedbacks
and then after that, we'll come back.
- And then we'll make recommendation to council?
- Yes. - Okay, great.
- Correct, Ted?
- Just process, just kind of for everybody.
- I'm sorry, I'm looking at the remaining steps
and I don't see it coming back to PNZ again.
I'm not sure if that's true or not
so I can definitely look into that.
- If I recall from previous presentations,
if there are changes or comments that may come back
and if there aren't, then I think it may be it moves on.
- Okay, that makes sense.
- I think that's what we did when we had it for utilities,
I think, possibly.
- Okay. - Anyway, okay.
Any other questions for staff on these,
either one of these two items?
Commissioner Ellis. - Thank you, Chair.
Just real quick, any of our comments today,
do you need us to email them separately to you
or with whatever we discussed at this work session?
Do you need that in a separate email
or does the meeting suffice?
- The meeting is good.
We've taken notes, we understand what comments
were made during this meeting.
If you have any additional comments afterward,
we would be happy to have those in an email format.
You can contact me, Chad Allen,
but yes, we've received your comments today
that you've given us at this meeting.
- Okay, thank you.
- Great, okay.
Thank you, great presentation.
- Do you want to drop?
- Sure.
- Deborah, before you get started,
how long do you need?
Do we want a break and get food or go ahead and then--
- You can break and eat and I will present what you eat.
- Okay.
(laughing)
- Oh no, I will give you a chance.
- Okay.
- And of course, you can always email me.
- All right, at 5.37, I'll call a recess
and we'll take a break and we'll get some food
and we'll reconvene.
(murmuring)
Good evening and welcome back
to the City of Denton work session.
I will call us back into order at,
it's like 5.48.
- Good evening.
My name is Deborah Viera.
I'm with the Environmental Services Department
and we are going to discuss the changes
or proposed revisions to sub-chapter 17
of the Denton Development Code
addressed in environmentally sensitive areas,
also known as the ESAs.
Some of you have got some training from me,
have heard me before about environmental sensitive areas.
Some of you are new to the board.
So I'm going to do a 101 in 30 seconds.
But let me put an offer out there for the commission.
If you are interested in getting any training session
about environmentally sensitive area,
a staff is available to do that in the near future.
Just let us know and we will scale something
so in that way, all the new commissioners
could get up to speed of what ESAs are and so on.
So basically, the City of Denton provide special protection
to four type of environmental sensitive areas.
Those are floodplains, riparian buffers,
water-related habitats and upland.
Some of these ESAs or type of ESAs,
because they are dependent on the presence of water,
they co-locate or they are nested inside each other.
When it comes down to floodplains,
the city makes two distinctions.
We identify those that are defined as a developed
or that means that they have been heavily modified,
disturbed and there's no habitat out there to protect.
And then we have the undeveloped floodplains,
which are those who are more in a natural state.
In general, the ESAs provide six functions.
It is provide habitat, wildlife live in them,
serve as a conduit of plants, nutrients,
wildlife move from point A through point B through the ESAs
.
They act as a barrier, they filter pollutants,
they serve as a source for resources
and serve as a sink and sequestration area for pollutants.
So those are the ecological functions
that those environmental sensitive areas provide.
But ESAs have also an added value to us.
First, by the city having regulations
that protects those areas helps the city
with the TCEQ phase two municipal separate storm
source system or MS4 permit.
That permit is issued by TCEQ on a five year cycle.
So every five years we get a new permit
that we have to submit through TCEQ.
Having those special regulations that protects those areas
allow us to actually meet the goals and objective
of the permit for the city.
The TCEQ construction general permit also is able to be met
in some aspects by the protection of ESAs.
Important and related to the previous discussion
about drainage, having ESAs identified on a map
and having protections of those areas have helped the city
with the National Floodplain Insurance Program.
Those are the floodplain management regulations
that we have in place to protect properties during rain
events.
The higher we rate on the program,
that means that translate into actually savings
to homeowners and property owners
who are in the floodplain who needs
to get floodplain insurance.
So put us in a better position,
in a better rate system for them
and we can actually pass those savings to the policy owners
.
And it help us with the integrated storm water management
I-Swim City designation.
We got that designation I believe in 2016
and currently we are ranked silver level
on the ranking system for I-Swim.
Why we need to revise 17?
Well, the entire debt and development code
and criteria manual have been going through some changes
throughout the past 15 years.
17 have never been revised.
So there are inconsistencies with other regulations
when we started back in 2002, everything dovetail.
But as changes have been made,
then those inconsistencies have been created.
So we have to kind of go back and try to see
that all the regulations were 17
and other regulations apply, they do.
The development community have indicated to us
that the wording of that sub-chapter could be improved.
Some of the phrasing could be improved.
There are aspects of 17 that they lack clarity.
So additional language will actually help understand
what the city is trying to attain.
There are some policies that were established
when the DDC was adopted and sub-chapter 17 was created
that even though the policy was created,
there was no how to do.
So in this process, we were looking
into those instances as well.
And evaluation of the existing policies.
Which policies are working?
Which one are not?
Which one we have to just tweak?
Which one we have to revamp completely?
And new policies.
We are 15, almost 16 years after that,
should we consider new policies as well.
So those are the reasons why 17
have been brought up for revision.
So anything that is related to environmental issues
is better through the Committee on the Environment.
The Committee on the Environment
is a sub-committee of city council
composed by three council members.
In June of 2016, we went to the COE
and we presented our request for starting revising 17.
They gave us the green light to do it.
It took us 13 months with them.
Just keep in mind, this committee only meets once a month
and they have a long agenda.
So we were kind of taking small pieces at a time
and took us that long.
All the code revisions were classified in four types.
Corrections, those are the typos, the grammatical errors,
the acronyms and things like that.
Those are the easy fixes.
Then code language clarifications
and code language additions.
Clarifications are if we can improve the phrasing
or we can add something to make that more clear.
Code language addition is those are instances
that the policy were there.
We were not changing the policy
but we are providing language to give better guidance
to the development community about that policy.
And policy changes.
The language that are being proposed
have been vetted through the public as well.
We have posted all the red lines and clean versions
through the development code of the web page.
Notices to all project docs applicants were sent via email
so we did a blast email out.
Some of you may have got notices.
We did a presentation as a part of the DDC update
open house meetings with Clarion twice.
And we have solicited input from local
and out of town developers and consultants.
We're still receiving those.
As of yesterday at 5 p.m. I got a new batch of comments.
So the compilation that I provided to you
is a work in progress, those new comments
will be added to it.
My goal is that when we go to public hearing
we hopefully have the whole compilation finished.
And also there will be a column where I'm going to provide
some explanation of how those issues
have been addressed already.
So when we start changing 17 we also have to make sure
that the connections to the rest of the DDC
are valid or needs to be modified.
So this is the list of changes outside 17
that will have to take in place for the proposed changes
to actually have a dovetailing with them.
So we will have to go and change the final plot checklist.
This is just something that could be done administratively.
Change, I'm sorry, staff review procedure detail on 3.7
will have to be revised and add that additional language.
And you will see where the proposed changes
will tie to those as we move through the slides.
The staff review procedure on 3.7D
will have to also be amended
with the following language in green.
The drainage criteria manual,
we already made the changes
and it is just removing coastal Bermuda,
adding the word native and make it plural on grasses.
That's the extent that needs to be done.
We have to change the alternative ESA plan checklist.
That's something that we will do administratively.
We will be creating a new ESA criterion manual.
We will touch bases later during the presentation.
And we will have to update the ESA map.
So let's start, let's see how far I can get.
So what I have done, I picked the top,
I believe seven or eight substantial changes
to be discussed and we will go through it.
However, if you want to go line by line,
staff is ready to do that.
Just let me know what will be your preference.
So am I going with the motor suspension?
- Let's go with your presentation
and if we need to get into more detail, we will.
- Okay, so first we want to increase
and expand the credits given when ESAs are preserved.
Currently in Italian you will see
where the current language is.
It's pretty much, if you preserve ESAs
and this is mostly trees,
you can get credit under the landscape
tree canopy requirements.
So let's say that you leave one area intact,
which is ESA, happens to be within your parking lot.
Then you can use that natural area
to count towards your landscape requirements and so on.
Especially oblong habitat.
Oblong habitat we're dealing with post-ogues
and they're quite sensitive for modification in hydrology.
So the chances that a post-ogue will do well
close to a parking lot is not that great.
So we kind of try to revamp the amount of credit
that we are given.
We understand that trees are expensive,
but a landscape is expensive.
And if you have to leave an area natural
plus you have to provide more landscape
that adds to it.
So we went through it and we took the draft
of the tree code and looked into that.
And the language that you will see here
really dovetails with the draft of the tree code.
I believe the tree code will be presented to you
probably maybe in two or four weeks or so.
So it is a good timing that you will be seeing
the revisions to the ESA and then following
will be the tree code as well.
So there's some close connection between the two.
So first one square foot of tree canopy
will be given for every square foot
of preserved ESA tree canopy, one to one.
So let's say that you need to preserve 30%
of your tree canopy on site.
If you happen to have ESAs and those ESAs have trees on it
then those trees can count toward that 30% that you have.
So that save you and help developers.
Two square feet of landscape crap will be given
for every square foot of preserved ESA tree canopy.
So on the landscape section of it, you will be two to one.
And no, that sits in between two ecoregions.
You have the Easter cross timber on the west side,
you have the grasses on the west side of town.
So that's one of the reasons the western side of town
is more grass oriented.
So and we believe that there's merits
and those ecosystems should be preserved.
So we are proposing one square foot of landscape care
will be given for every square foot
of no wooded preserved area.
And that is to respond to the natural condition of that
location where the western part of town is more grass
driven.
- Commissioner Sanchez.
- When you say grasses, are you talking about native
grasses?
- Yes, yes.
Yeah, correct.
- Okay, just not any grasses.
They have to be the native.
- Yeah, well for example, if you have riparian buffers,
they might be dominated by grasses instead of trees.
So if you are protecting the riparian buffer
which has grasses on it, then you could take,
you can use that towards your landscape credits.
So right now, the code is more shifted
toward giving credits for trees
and we kind of forget all the type of vegetation.
- I guess I'm just, a lot of those areas can be
dominated by grasses but not necessarily native grasses.
So you have to look at the species, it's important
that it's a native grass.
- Yeah, well when we go out and the riparian buffer,
I will tell you that it is common to find exotic species
mixed into the entire vegetation.
But when we do a isophyll assessment,
one of the things that we look into it
is the species present, okay?
And that rates the whole, helps on the rating
of the habitat itself.
If it is good, you will see that there will be more
native plant species present that exotic,
the present exotic reduces the ranking and so on.
So all that is already built into the process.
We are keeping the same language about the Parkland
dedication that was on the original statement
as well as the drainage standards.
- Commissioner Ellis.
- Thank you, Chair.
Teppera, with the credits on one, does the developer
then choose between A and B with regard to that one?
Or do they get A and B?
- Well, I will say, as written, they will get A and B.
Is that something that you would like to change?
Okay.
- No, I was hoping they wouldn't have to choose.
I was hoping they'd get both of those.
Okay, thanks.
- So, yes.
- Before you move on with that slide,
since you brought up that we're gonna be seeing
the tree code in a few weeks, how do the credits given here
compared to what's gonna be in mitigation,
'cause in the past it's been one to two or one to four,
and one of my concerns has always been
if we really wanna preserve, why don't we encourage it
more rather than one to one make it one to four,
if we really wanna encourage them to preserve.
- Well, actually, this would be,
this mimics what the tree code has.
And the tree code also is moving into,
DBH and things like that, they are moving into
square foot of tree canopy.
So, when Haywood comes and explain the details
of the changes, that would be one interesting point to make
.
But yeah, me and Haywood have been working on this.
So, what you are saying is dovetails
with what Haywood is working on.
- I think that's good, if there's now gonna be
some consistency because there hasn't been in the past.
- Yes. - Okay, great.
Looking forward to that.
- The second substantial changes will be to establish
an appeal process for ESA staff
field assessment determination.
And this is why on my two slides back
when I was all that language in green, this is why.
Right now, the ESA staff field determination,
there's no appeal process for it.
Okay, we have been lucky in 15 years
that we have not been challenged.
But it's a deficiency on 17.
So, we are adding that appeal process
and that will be given through
the zoning board of adjustments.
So, we will provide new language on 17
and new language on 3.7.
The designation on the depiction of developed
and undeveloped floodplain habitants.
And this is where the major change is.
So, I'm going to slow down a little
so in that way you can catch up with me.
The city of them make distinctions
between developed and undeveloped floodplain.
In black and italics, you will see the current definition
of what a developed floodplain it is.
So, what we did, we changed,
or we updated how the 100 year floodplain
is now being called.
FEMA now calls it a 1% annual chance floodplain.
Why? Because the 100 year floodplain designation
promotes a false sense of security
that that type of flooding only happens 100 year
when in reality is in every single year
you have one chance for that type of rain event
and floods to happen.
So, we're kind of updating
and making be consistent with FEMA.
And we added language like for which the natural stream
has been redesigned and no longer characteristic
of natural channel and or its floodplain
have been significantly modified,
graded, filled and otherwise disturbed.
The proposed definition is an improvement
of what the current definition is.
It give a little bit of more guidance.
The definition of undeveloped floodplain
pretty much to stay the same what we did,
we just changed the term 100 year floodplain
for FEMA on percent annual chance floodplain
but stays the same.
So, let's step back and take a little bit
of background information.
The floodplain ESAs are defined
by what FEMA calls the 1%.
We follow the same boundaries.
FEMA firms, which are the FEMA maps,
came into existence as a way to provide
a national standard with a regional discrimination.
And they choose that the 100 year flood
was the item by which that floodplain boundary
will be established.
- Commissioner Beck.
- Thank you, Chair.
This FEMA plan, has it been updated recently
or where is it?
- The last time that got updated was, I believe,
in 2011, they did, 2011?
Yes.
They pretty much redo all the firms for the city.
But taking, just be aware that every time
that a development modifies the floodplain,
either through reclamation or through a better mapping
of the floodplain, those updates are also incorporated
into those firms, okay?
And now FEMA before, for those changes to reflect
on the firms, used to take years.
Now they are, I think, within weeks, like six weeks,
they actually provide that new information
on their website, okay?
So, because FEMA maps are constantly changing
and updating, so the ESA floodplain goes with it, okay?
- Okay, great, thanks.
- And the purpose of the floodplain, of those firms,
are not based on ecological considerations,
are based on flood insurance purposes, okay?
So, why using FEMA maps to establish
our floodplain ESA maps?
It is not a perfect match, I will give you that,
but it's a good fit.
Floodplain delineation are based on risk,
no habitat boundaries.
Uncertainty with unstudied floodplain,
we have plenty of those in the city of Denton,
and they don't follow ECA regions.
But the good side of it is that when we,
when development happens, and they happen
to have a floodplain, they will have,
they will dedicate that area as a drainage easement.
So that area will be set apart,
and development will be excellent,
or very limited development could happen
on those drainage areas.
ESA level playing field reduces the chances
for taking claims.
The developers are already providing that drainage
to meet subchapter 19 of the Denton Development Code.
So, in some extent, we are not taking more
than what the developer would be required
to meet for subchapter 19.
And everybody knows FEMA and their FEMA floodplain maps.
So, it is something that developers, designers,
engineers understand.
So, I'm going to give you a snapshot of developed
and undeveloped floodplain maps in the city of Denton.
The two maps are the same.
The two maps is the same scale.
One is just showing the aerial.
The other one is showing the ESA layer superimposed
on that floodplain.
The hot pink is the developed floodplain.
The teal color is the undeveloped floodplain.
And I'm going to step out.
If you see, especially in this area, you will agree
that that floodplain looks quite natural.
The stream still meandering.
The vegetation seems to be thick and healthy.
Why do we have the changes from undeveloped to developed
to undeveloped to developed to undeveloped again?
So, those are inconsistencies
that the floodplain ESA layer has right now.
Okay? Remember, the ESA map was created back in 1999,
roughly.
When the Denton Development Cone was first adopted in 1999,
the city started working on the implementation of the DDC,
which got adopted roughly two years and a half later.
In the in-between, the city came
out with something called interim regulations.
Some of you might be familiar with that term.
And some of the provisions that we currently have
on '17 made it to that point.
So, we had the ESA map.
So, we are 15, 16 years after many
of those areas are still intact while we are designating
areas
as a developed floodplain
where no development have happened in those areas.
And this is a situation
that you can see throughout the entire city.
That's another example of those situations.
But they are more common or found more common
on the west part of town.
If I am a developer and or I am a property owner and I have
undeveloped floodplain under this map
and my next door neighbor comes and he happens
to have the developed designation,
I will complain why the inconsistencies.
Why is he not required to provide all the additional
requirements when I am required to provide all those?
So, we have to go back and from a quality standpoint just
trying
to make everybody consistent.
This is another example of what we have.
So, we are proposing to change how developed
and undeveloped are currently shown on the ESA map.
We are not getting rid of the designation.
We are just trying to change how they are depicted
on the ESA map.
Firms are updated on a regular basis.
We cover that.
So, that makes that layer to be a very influx.
And standards should be applied based on site conditions
where development is about to happen and not based
on an outdated map.
So, what are the substantial changes?
Upon-- we are proposing or they see--
actually the COE is proposing
that we make the following changes.
Upon field verification areas designated
as FEMA 1% annual chance floodplain will be classified
according to the existing condition as developed
or undeveloped floodplain.
Meaning that if there is a development application
submitted, we will tell that the applicant,
you have a floodplain ESA.
Let us go to your site and determine
if it is developed or undeveloped.
And see based on the field verification,
these are the set of standards that apply to you.
Developed floodplain standards, what we add to those
standards,
what I did, I took the original language.
It was previously in a paragraph form.
I broke it down in numbers.
And the only thing changes that we are--
the only thing new that we are proposing is item number two
,
which has just two clarification that says
that if you have a developed floodplain
but you could still have a healthy repair
and buffer going through it.
And you will still be able-- and you are still required
to provide protection to the repair and buffer even though
it
is nested or inside of a developed floodplain.
That's a point of-- that many people have complaining
because it's not very clear right now
in the development code.
So this is just a clarification for it.
You might remember the Ryan Meadows development
where they had to go through an alternative ESA plan
because they were required to extend Cricdale as a part
of the thoroughfare plan.
Because this-- the-- because staff didn't have the
authority
to approve that, they had to go through an alternative ESA
plan
and that is additional time that they have to spend.
So we have taken-- we have listened
to the development community.
And now what we are do-- what we are proposing is
for those roadways that are identified
in the thoroughfare plan to be extended through ESAs,
they will not have to go through an alternative ESA to do
so.
And we made it consistent that this is not only
within the floodplain but if there's water related habitat
or repair and buffer nested inside
that will also be impacted, all those disturbance will be
exempted from going through an alternative ESA plan.
As long as the areas that are impacted are restored,
rehabilitated, stabilized and so on.
And that would be approved at staff level.
This is the-- related to the exemption roadway identified
for a repair and buffer.
So substantial changes on-- okay.
Upland habitat.
Up to now, upland-- preservation of upland habitat was only
required
for residential uses, single family, multi-family, 2F.
Okay. Now the committee on the environment thinks and
consider
that we are losing a lot of tree canopy due
to non-residential development that happens
to have upland habitat within the premises.
So they are proposing that non-residential development
to preserve 30% of the upland.
Before it was non, now it's 30%.
But this is the 30% that you will hear Haywood in couple
of weeks to talk about it.
So let's say that you are a non-residential development.
You happen to have upland habitat.
You will also be required to tree coat preservation or
mitigation.
So if you are preserving the 30% of the upland,
you will be meeting the tree coat with it.
So you will not be paying additional entry
into the tree fund and you will not be having
to replant trees on site.
Okay. So at this point, I'm going to stop here
and I'm proposing that the next time that we meet,
that we will continue our presentation.
>> Okay. Do I have questions so far?
>> So please, some of you have already emailed me questions
.
But if you have any questions, comments from now to the
next time,
please feel free to email those to me and I can prepare a
response
for all of you.
>> Commissioner Schmitt.
>> Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to ask this question to you but actually, Chair
Strange,
if you could answer it.
On the 30% requirement that you just mentioned
on the non-residential development,
what type of cost are you going to see to non-residential
developers
by having that requirement now in place?
I think it's a good requirement but what kind
of new costs would they have?
Since there is no requirement that now that added
on there, how is that going to impact them financially?
>> Well, it goes back how you cite your development, okay.
So if the upland habitat is -- and again, you pick and
choose which portion
of the upland habitat you preserve, okay.
>> Okay.
>> We recommend that you pick areas of preservation
that are continuations of other tree areas on the adjacent
parcels to you
because in that way you prevent fragmentation of the
habitat, okay.
However, you pick and choose which portion
of the upland you preserve as long as the 30%.
Yes, there will be -- that means that you --
if you have a standard site plan, for example, that you use
in all the locations
and you end up having to modify that standard, that would
probably come
to an expense having to alter those site plans.
At the same time, if that 30% will count towards your tree
preservation,
then otherwise so there is some cost saving or at least not
duplication of cost.
>> I'm going to make one statement here regarding upland
habitat.
It's got to be at least 10 acres before it qualifies.
So we're not talking about individual trees that are
sitting up there that are --
>> Okay.
>> It's got to be a 10 acre stand.
>> So upland habitat is not all tree stands.
It has to meet a criteria and that's a good point, that
have to be 10 acres total
and it has to have a specific species present, post-ogues
and blackjacks.
Those are the typical flag species that we'll use for
eastern cross timber forest.
So it's not every single tree stand is the one identified
as an upland habitat.
Yes.
>> I was just going to say --
>> Commissioner Sanchez.
>> Oh, I'm sorry.
The define -- making -- you know, having definitions when
you're talking
about the different types of habitats is define what you're
actually talking about
because when I was looking through this, I was kind of
questioning,
what does she actually mean by upland habitat and, you know
,
define what it is and if you're updating this because
anybody that starts reading
through this is going to be hard.
Well, I don't know what she's really talking about.
You have to define your -- those terms.
You know, does it make sense?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. I just want to say thank you for the change on the
mobility plan
because I actually had a note on my card from the matrix, a
comment back from 10/26/16,
Commissioner Roselle and I from that exact example.
So thank you for keeping up with that and incorporating
that into our ESA.
So we look forward to continuing.
Will you be back next time or --
>> Correct.
We are planning to actually go as a public hearing item in
two weeks from now.
What we are planning is just to have a continuing our work
session.
If you have any comments, email those to me, any questions
so in that way,
I can provide those either responses ahead of time or
during the meeting
and hopefully we can complete.
If you have any questions that might not be related to
those substantial changes,
let me know, staff will be available to go line by line if
necessary.
>> Great.
>> Thank you.
And at 625, I will close our work session and we'll recon
vene at 630 in council chambers.
>> Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton Planning
and Zoning Commission meeting for January the 24th, 2018.
This meeting has been duly posted and we do have a quorum
present and I will call us
to order at 632.
Our first order of business will be to stand and give the
pledge to the US and the Texas flag.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Our next order of business will be to consider approval
of our Planning
and Zoning Commission minutes.
Does anybody have any changes or could we have a motion
with both sets of minutes?
Commissioner Ellis.
>> Chair, can we do them separate because I need to recuse
on one of them.
>> Sure.
>> Okay, Commissioner Smith.
>> Do we have a vote on them separately?
>> Separately.
Let's take a motion separately.
>> Okay.
>> Do you mind with the dates?
>> You are, you have four.
>> December 13th.
>> Motion to approve the minutes for December 13th, 2017.
>> Okay. Commissioner Beck.
>> Second.
>> Okay. We have a first and a second for the minutes of
December 13th.
Any questions or comments?
Seeing none, we'll call for a vote on the board.
[ Pause ]
The motion is going to carry 7-0.
Commissioner Smith.
>> Motion to approve the minutes for January 10th, 2018.
>> Okay. Commissioner Sullivan.
>> Second that motion.
>> Okay. We have a first and a second for approval of our
minutes for January 10th, 2018.
Any questions or comments?
Seeing none, we'll call for a vote on the board.
[ Pause ]
That motion is going to carry 5-0 with two recuse.
That will move us on to our consent agenda.
Commissioner Rossell.
>> I motion to approve the consent agenda.
>> Okay.
Commissioner Ellis.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Second.
>> Okay. We have a first and a second for approval of the
consent agenda.
Any comments or questions?
Seeing none, we'll call for a vote on the board.
[ Pause ]
The motion will carry 7-0.
[ Pause ]
That will move us to our public hearings section this
evening.
And just as an announcement to those, if you haven't
noticed on your agenda, if you're here for item B, C, or D,
all of those items will not be heard tonight.
The only item we'll be hearing is item 4A.
And at that time, at this time, I'm going to open the
public hearing for Z17-0026B.
And I will call on Shandrian for presentation.
>> Good evening.
I'm Shandrian Jarvis with the Development Services
Department.
The next item, Z17-26, is a rezoning request for a property
located on the east side of the city
near the Audre and Nottingham Lane intersection.
The request is to rezone approximately 13 acres from a
neighborhood residential 2 zoning district,
which is basically a single family detached that allows a
maximum of two dwelling units per acre.
And the applicant is requesting to go to a neighborhood
residential 6,
which allows single family town homes and duplexes at a
maximum of six dwelling units per acre.
Just to give you some landmarks, this Mingo Road, there we
go, Mingo Road is here.
The Denton Bible Church is to the north.
The Denton Church of Christ is here.
Audre Lane serves as the western boundary of the tract, and
then the north, on the north,
there's also an extension of Audre.
The plot, the lot is currently undeveloped primarily.
There are some limited agricultural uses, and it has not
been plotted.
When we analyze zoning and rezoning requests, we have two
basic criteria that serve as a guide.
And we have two specific criteria that are in effect
according to the DDC.
The first one is, does the request meet the intent of the
Future Land Use Plan,
which is an element of the comprehensive plan?
And then two, if we do approve or recommend approval for
the request,
would there be adequate provision of roadways,
transportation, water, sewer, and then public services,
and then the parks, so we look at those things.
The first item that we considered was the consistency with
the Future Land Use Plan.
This area, the subject property, is classified as low
density residential, the light yellow on the map.
Low density is intended to promote single-family detached
units that range in a density of one unit per acre all the
way up to four.
Well, let me go ahead and describe what else is going on in
the area.
As you get closer to Mingo Road, which is a primary arter
ial, you'll see a mix of some commercial.
You'll see moderate residential land use classification
here, some commercial just to the north,
and as you go further out, some employment center
industrial.
And those, that is what you would typically find along a
major street, those more intense uses.
And then we have those moderate residential uses that would
then transition to the low density
as you get farther away from the main streets.
So when we looked at this request, we found that it did
meet the Future Land Use Map.
NR6, as I stated before, promotes a higher density than
what we currently see in this area of the city.
And it also would introduce some uses that are not
compatible with this area.
Currently, the main product there is single-family, well,
primarily is single-family detached,
and the zoning's range from NR2 up to an NR4.
And most of the lots are about, are either somewhere
between 40 and 50 and 60 feet wide.
So when a request doesn't meet the Future Land Use Plan,
the DDC directs us to consider some other items
or some other elements as we analyze the request.
We start with compatibility, again, with the existing
character and what's already built in that area.
Compatibility in terms of building scale, the land use, and
construction type.
We look at that. We compare what is there with what's being
requested.
We also look at any potential impacts to the public
infrastructure, such as the roadways, the water,
the wastewater, sewer, and then again, the public services,
police, fire, EMS, and schools, and parks.
We also look at the environmental impacts.
Would there be any, if there's any environmentally
sensitive areas, what would be the impact to that?
If there's existing tree canopy on the site, what would be
the impact to those?
And then erosion control.
So things like that are what we consider as we look at
these requests.
And then the code also gives us a catch-all, anything, any
other compelling reason for the request, basically.
So that's left up to your imagination.
So when we look at compatibility, again, the surrounding
zones range from NR2 to NR4.
If you remember, maybe in December, this track to the north
, immediately to the north, was brought to you for
consideration.
The applicant was requesting an NR6 zoning, basically
identical to what we're here for today.
City Council actually approved the zoning with the
conditional overlay that restricted the uses on the
property to just single family.
And then it put a cap on the number of units that could be
developed.
So when we look at what available infrastructure is in the
area, along Audre Lane on the western border of the track,
there is water and wastewater available, and then also
along the north edge, it's available for extensions into
this property.
And those would be required when they get ready to develop.
The western segment of Audre is currently a two-lane, und
ivided road.
The city's mobility plan identifies it to be, when it's
finally improved, it'll be a four-lane divided with
sidewalks and bike lanes.
And the segment to the north is ultimately planned to be a
65-foot right-of-way.
The street width is going to be less than that.
And I believe that's going to also include sidewalks on
both sides of the street.
The right-of-way dedications and the perimeter street
improvements associated with this site will be assessed at
the platting stage.
We wouldn't do it here at zoning. Just a note.
So looking at the environmental aspects, we didn't find any
ESA on site.
There's no floodplain. On the western section of the track,
there is some tree canopy,
which would trigger our tree preservation and mitigation if
needed.
So as required by the Texas Local Government Code, we sent
out 66 letters to property owners within 200 feet of the
subject property.
We received to date six letters in opposition, and these
areas highlighted in red show the feedback that we received
from those owners within that 200 feet boundary.
We also issued 173 courtesy notices for the 500-foot buffer
, which is that blue line. And then the applicant held a
neighborhood meeting last week.
So in summary, NR6 is not consistent with the Future Land
Use Plan.
It's incompatible with the surrounding property in terms of
permitted density and uses.
And then we feel as staff that the site is more suitable to
an NR4 or NR3 district.
So we are recommending denial. And that concludes my
presentation. I can answer questions and the applicant is
also here.
I have a question. Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Shandrin, for the presentation.
Could you tell us what the on-street parking requirements
or allowances are for both NR2 and NR6 and what are those
for each, if they're different?
I'm going to.
No.
I don't have that information with me per se, but generally
any unstriped street is open for on-street parking unless
there's a sign that says it's not allowed.
So they could be parking on both sides of the street.
Unless there's a, unless it's striped or there's a sign
prohibiting it.
And if that's the case, does that allow for fire trucks to
make it through there?
What we, the feedback we received is that our smallest
street cross section does not facilitate the fire truck if
there is parking on both sides of the street.
And I know the city is currently looking at that to make
some changes so that at least we can get a fire truck
through.
It may look like, it may end up that we allow parking on
one side of the street or we just widen the section
altogether, but that hasn't been finalized yet.
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. I just wanted to add to that. If you recall from the
work sessions, the new transportation criteria manual had
those new sections.
So the widths for residential streets have been widened.
And so it kind of goes back to that context sensitive
corridor, if you will.
So they, there, I think there were three options where they
could choose whether or not they would be on street parking
or bike lane.
That would be looked at. Obviously those would be adopted
prior to this property going through platting.
So they would be subject to that new, that new criteria
manual.
Great. Thanks, Richard.
Okay.
Any other questions for staff?
Commissioner Ellis.
Sorry. Thank you, Chair.
Okay. So on that note, but zoning does not change a
residential street with.
No.
Okay. Just want to make that clarification. Thank you.
I have two cards wishing to speak.
First card will be Thomas Fletcher.
Good evening. Thomas Fletcher, Kim Lee Horn. I'm the
engineer for the applicant 5750 Genesis court Frisco, Texas
.
I've got a quick presentation for you all.
Okay. This which scene on the screen is the aerial of the
site to the south.
We have all dress states, which we abut on our south
property line.
And then also we have, I believe it's.
Let me double check. I believe it's.
East Ridge edition.
Which came after all the states East Oaks edition.
So the that's the tracks to our south throughout our track.
We've got a small sliver that goes up to all the east west
section of all.
And then we've got the north south section of all on our
west.
As Shandrian mentioned the east west section is slated to
be a 65 foot right away, which is a collector section and
be 37 foot back to back.
And that does have sidewalks, future sidewalks.
The the existing section on Audre north south is currently
four lane undivided section.
So I believe that pavement with is somewhere between 45 to
49 feet back to back, which has two lanes in each direction
, which would generally be classified as a minor arterial.
Here is the current dent in zoning map.
As you can see, the site just to our north was recently
adopted in our six with overlay conditions.
We intend I have a concept plan I'll show you here in a
second, but we intend to develop single family residential.
So we are open to recommendation with overlay conditions.
So just want to make sure that you all are aware of that,
that we're not we were not intending to develop anything
other than single family.
So we want to make sure that you all are aware.
Here's the future land use plan, which shows our track and
all their surrounding tracks, which is moderate residential
, which is up to four units per acre.
And then here's our concept plan.
So what you're seeing is this tract is approximately 13
acres on the layout.
We're showing 56 residential lots because of the western
portion, the depth of the track on the western portion.
We've got really deep lots along there which provide
opportunity for tree preservation along the state's
boundary.
We also have flexibility in our plan to provide tree
preservation on the perimeter where it's where it's to the
south where there's the existing homes.
So there was a homeowners meeting in which the Brad Shelton
and one of the other engineers from our firm attended last
week.
There were comments and concerns that were brought up in
that and I'll try and address those within this
presentation.
But I did want to point out the Aldra State's plat when it
was plotted back in 84.
That is a plat of 54 lots on 12 acres, which is a four
point five density.
So when you look at the current zoning maps that show it's
in our four in actuality, it's slightly over in our four.
So our development with the 56 lots on 13 acres, that's
four point three units.
So it's actually when you look at the densities of the
adjacent plants in the area that that we're next to, we're
really in line with the with the existing conditions.
So some of the concerns that came up with the neighborhood
meeting was the was the traffic.
Main entry for this development would be on Alder Lane,
which is a four lane divided roadway.
Fifty six lots would be a very minimal impact to the
existing traffic percentage wise that's already there.
We would have two points of access to meet the fire code
requirements, a connection to Alder Lane and then a
connection to Latimore.
When Alder State's was developed, the city had foresight to
know that development is going to grow and they provided a
street stub to the to the undeveloped track so that when it
does develop, it would have connection for utility and for
for transportation purposes.
There was a concern about on street parking that was
mentioned in any development.
We're following the current standards as the city updates
their standards.
We follow those standards. The city does have off street
parking requirements of two off street parking spaces per
lot.
So the setback limits for the garage are stipulated such
that there's room for two vehicles in the parking in the
driveway for for each lot.
Street damage.
The that's always a concern when we go through the
development process and do the design.
There's pre construction meeting held with the city and the
city take notes of the conditions of the existing roadways
and the inspectors are constantly monitoring construction
looking at is that our construction that's causing damage
to the street or is it.
Is there something else or is there damage at all.
So that's that's one of the things that's looked at and
kind of governed through the process.
The contractor would be responsible. They're there.
There are three way contracts with the city.
They have responsibilities to the developer and to the city
if damage is called to remedy that that damage and in my
experience and projects where there's been any item that
hasn't been remedied to the city's satisfaction and the
city just withholds the final acceptance.
So we would not get a final acceptance letter until the
city is satisfied with the project the improvements the
public improvements and remediation of any damage that may
have occurred.
Tree removal concerns with the extra depth lots.
We are doing a layout such that we're preserving that
perimeter trees those so that the neighbors still have
those right there on the border with their property.
We are obligated to meet the city of Denton's ordinances
for tree removal, which currently requires over 20% of 20%
of the tree canopy to be preserved.
So we would be following those regulations and I think with
the plan that we've got, we would actually be exceeding
those regulations but as part of this, as this moves
forward we would do a tree survey with the preliminary plat
and quantify that density as I mentioned, what we're
proposing is a
is 56 units on 13 acres which is a 4.3 density.
I've shown you that the Alder states was 4.49 when it
developed East Oaks edition was 34 lots on 7.745 acres
which is 4.39. So we're actually just slightly under that.
We're, we're happy to do an overlay or if y'all are
inclined to recommend approval with an overlay condition of
single family use only with a density of no greater than 4.
3 or somewhere in that that area where we're perfectly
acceptable with that.
And there was another concern about decreased property
values. One of the things we did was get on Denton Central
Appraisal District and kind of look at some of the property
values in the area. And what we can tell you is that based
off of current market conditions land prices development
calls, all that's going to drive a proposed starting home
price point above the current home valuations that are in
the area. So, if anything, this develop would act
development would actually help increase the property
values because when development occurs, newer
development occurs in the area with higher valuations that
helps bring up the valuations of the adjacent properties.
So project benefits for the proposed density is in line
with the adjacent developments.
It meets a market need for size and style of housing. We
feel it's consistent with the Denton plan and that we're,
we're right at or just over the four units per acre, and it
's consistent with the, with the adjacent subdivisions and
consistent with the approved zoning of the track to the
north of us that was done recently.
It provides open space and trees we had a nice open space
park area, kind of in our north eastern corner that we were
adding so that we could kind of create a nice little pocket
park amenity in there.
And, you know, it was with the development will, you know,
meet that all the drainage ordinances the codes
requirements for that and provide a benefit as far as the,
the utility and drainage of the area. And really that's,
that's all my presentation I'll be happy to answer any
questions you may have got some questions
Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. Yes, sir. A
couple of questions for you. So 4.3 is the number of units
per acre that you have right now with 56.
So, you know, we have, we have the ability to to reduce
down from proposed or applied for zone. We can't do it for
yours. If you're 4.3, we can't we can't we suggest appear
as a commission we can't suggest say we shouldn't do in our
six we should do in our four instead, because you know, you
don't confine to in our four.
Because you have 4.3. Correct. Is there any way for you
during this conceptual stage to be able to reconfigure lots
to be able to fit to in our four zoning if we were to vote
that way.
I think we could I mean if basically we're saying is if we
go to in our four with a maximum of four, we would end up
having to take away for lots from the plan. That would,
what that would come down to. So it's my understanding and
I'm and correct me if I'm wrong, that you can make a
recommendation for in our six not to exceed 56 units on the
property.
You can write, you can, but there's been discussion and
work session before that, as we throw out overlays left and
right the problem with overlays is that if something were
to happen to this project and was to fall through.
There's no there's no clear designation as of right now,
whenever another developers looking for land that we've rez
oned with an overlay there's no clear designation on that
zoning of if an overlay exists unless they do digging and
so there could be a scenario where someone could purchase a
piece of land without knowing there's an overlay on it,
which is probably their fault for not doing due diligence
but right we want to avoid having hundreds of overlay
districts on every single new zoning property we do so just
to just a piece brought up there and I would say I would
want to consult my client.
But without answering. Yeah, because we're talking about,
you know, I think our preference would be if you are open
to the overlay with the maximum not to exceed, but if if
that's something you would like me to consult with my
client on I can do that and you can't shortlist we asked a
couple of questions so there's be public hearing later so
you can write very well do that come back afterwards.
The was the projected home value and the conceptual. I mean
just just looking at the development costs for this type of
development size lot I think we're projecting a starting
price in the 240 to 280 range.
I mean, we're still talking because we don't until we have
zoning to we kind of go through and do the preliminary plat
and kind of get more of the details defined it's hard to
dial in with a particular builder, but I would say that we
're looking at a starting price around the 240 and up to 280
and it could go up from there
and we're in the zoning processes not so right that it is
right sexual just wanted to know because he said it'd be
more than what's surrounding it. What's more right building
$500,000 houses there I don't think so right now and then
when I looked at the home values there looked like the home
values were in the lower 200,000 range.
So that just kind of gives you an idea is probably we're
probably talking 10 to 20% more is kind of where I would
estimate that at this point now question for you as well as
with the the lot north of you that a butts right there in
that corner behind the church that we that was voted in our
six.
So was there any discussion with that project and
collaborating in this time at all was at one point the app
you know my client looked to see if they had any interest
in selling that property.
I did at one time do a layout on that property and that
included that property.
There wasn't a deal to be had, I guess that developer had
planned to move forward with his development as a single
project.
You know we did look at hey if this property was able to be
tied to this tract as well how could we do a layout that
would maximize the topography and the site conditions
provide open space.
And, but from that point, since there was no willingness to
sell it really became two separate projects.
Commissioner Zell, thank you, Mr. Fletcher for your
presentation is actually really helpful to answer a lot of
my questions.
The only one I have left over from the presentation is, it
's my understanding that the address states lots are 50 to
60 feet wide on the frontage, how would your lots compared
to so I know like, so our lots are minimum lot frontage
would be 50 foot in width.
So they're they're comparable I mean when I pulled the Aud
ra plaid, there were, I think their lots were up to 60 foot
wide. It looked like the depth on most of their lots were
in the 116 foot 117 foot depth range.
So the majority of our lots especially on the western
portion of the track would be 135 and that range because of
the depth of the track because the residential street going
through there is in a 50 foot right of way.
It's a loaded street so you take the overall depth and take
the 50 foot out and essentially we're splitting it between
the two. One of the things we did on our, on our concept
plan is we try to put a curvilinear element to the street
so we didn't have a straight thoroughfare so it kind of
breaks up that that drive as you come into the, into the
subdivision but.
The lots would be a little bit narrower but they, the
majority of them would be on average quite a bit deeper.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr pleasure for your
presentation I like the idea that you're going to leave
that one little stretch of land up there on the northeast
sexers wooded area maybe future Clark.
Right.
In your discussions with the community, the community
meeting had to go discuss setbacks.
I'm not sure I like said I wasn't able to attend that the
engineer I've got the engineer here with me that was.
Could we ask him. Yeah, absolutely.
Either Scott or Brad can come up.
And if we could, could you tell us how many people attended
the meeting.
Scott Pemburn, Kimmy horn.
5750 Genesis court Frisco, Texas.
So your last name again, Pemburn pain burn pain burn.
Okay, thank you.
Setbacks were discussed.
The setbacks were proposing or in in line with the zoning,
of course, we, we have, I think currently five foot set
backs on the side yards.
And I think, I think 10 foot setbacks in the front.
10 foot. The zoning ordinance and this is for all the
different zoning districts. So in our two has a 10 foot
side yard setback in our three, I believe has a six foot
side yard setback in our four is a five foot side yard set
back in our six is a four foot side yard setback.
When we do residential development, we never utilize the
four foot side yard setback when you have less than eight
feet or less than 10 feet between buildings, you have
certain fire code requirements that you then have to follow
which makes building construction more expensive.
With the, with the layout when we talk about a 50 foot lot
we have a 40 foot pad the builders really look for the
building pad, and they develop we we developed a lot around
the building pad so they've got 40 foot product.
We do a 50 foot lot five foot side yards 10 foot in between
buildings, the city standard setbacks if you look the city
has a minimum setback of 10 feet along the front yard a
minimum rear yard setback of 10 feet as well.
These lots the minimum depth of these lots are building
pads are going to be 40 by 75 with a minimum depth of 120
on on some of the lots that are further to the east.
You've got a 20 foot front yard setback 75 foot pad that
leaves a 25 foot rear yard. So the city does allow for 10
foot front yard setback but they require 20 feet for the
setback to the garage in order to account for those two off
street parking requirements.
Thank you that's what I was looking for you mentioned you
could get to two cars and driveway but I see how that's one
of the things like most.
That's one of the things that you really have to explain if
you're asking what by code what is the code minimum. Well
the code minimum front yard setback is 10 feet that's in
the development code, but it also has the requirement of 20
feet for from the property to the garage
where you get and we do all when we go through into our
grading plans and everything we set the whole building 20
foot back because it just when you start talking about
grading and drive slopes and all that it just it kind of
makes it more of a challenge when you get that close to the
street.
Okay, one more question for you but Scott how many people
attended the community meeting.
I'm in the neighborhood of 10 to 15. 1015. Okay, thank you.
One last question for you, Mr. Fletcher. Yes, sir. In your
presentation you talked about how you, the way your layout
was that you would minimize tree removal but when I look,
looking at the picture that new street that you're
going to connect to Audra runs right through a big patch of
trees and then you have houses on both sides. So, right
when we put this together I don't know if you can bring it
back up but when we put this together and did the layout we
realized that there's, once we do our tree survey, that
there's probably some opportunity to adjust the layout in
that area for additional tree preservation. We even talked
about maybe looking at doing a boulevard in there where the
street wraps around it if we have enough depth, so that we
can kind of create some nice
center median with three or four of the really nice large
trees in that. And that would be something once we have a
tree survey we would try because it adds value. I mean we
want to preserve the trees. Anything we can do to enhance
the look and feel of the neighborhood is going to make it
more desirable.
Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions for the
applicant? Thank you.
Next card I have is Brad Shelton.
Thank you, Commissioners. I'm Brad Shelton, 2925 Punch Club
Road here in Denton. I think Thomas has done very well at
doing the presentation and answering questions but I'm also
here to answer any further questions that you may have of
me on behalf of the applicant.
Commissioner Matt.
Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I meant to ask, he said he had
roughly 15 to 20 people there. Yes, sir. We got six letters
of opposition to this. What was the headcount on that at
the meeting? Did you seem to have a 50/50?
It was mixed. The biggest concerns, again, that night were
from the few was, of course, just not having anything
nearby their existing homes, which is usual. But the
biggest thing was was fire and the front yard setbacks.
They seem to be the two looming issues on there.
And again, we have to, by right, meet the Denton
Development Code. And so, through the planning and
engineering design phase, that will be taken care of and be
addressed. And in those meetings as well, the fire marshal
is there, planning staff, engineering staff are all within
those meetings. So we have to get input and design and go
from that point. Yes, sir.
Okay, thank you. Also, I believe the houses that are
currently on the way out of more that you're going to
connect with there. Yes, sir. And the ones you have but two
on the south side. Those are brick homes. So are y'all
going to be building brick homes too? Is it going to be?
We'll be some masonry to it. Yes, sir. And now how much
that again, we're very in the very preliminary stage of
this. So we, you know, we've identified a few builders, but
nobody that we can't really physically talk to them to once
we get through to the next further steps to be able to have
something in hand from engineering and stuff. But yes, you
know, they'll have masonry on them. Yes, sir.
They're not. Well, I'm concerned if we're going to consider
an overlay. Yes, sir. We may not. But blending in is
important, especially coming in on the flat or if you're
not blending in with those houses there, it's going to be
quite dramatic. Yes, sir. So just something to consider.
Yes, sir.
Thank you. I have a question. If we do consider an overlay,
the numbers that we got were a total of 56 lots and then to
restrict it to single family only those family detached
single family detached.
Correct. That's a difference in the wording. So I'm sure it
's detached. Okay. Those two conditions would be okay. It
wouldn't interfere with your project the way you currently
have it designed. Correct. Okay.
Any other questions for the applicant.
Thank you. Thank you, sir.
This is a public hearing. Anyone who weeks wishes to speak
on this item please come forward at this time. If you'll
give us your name and your address, and if you haven't
already filled out a card if you'll fill one out for us
before you leave this evening.
Sir.
Good evening. My name is Jerry Steger and I live at 2408
whispering Oaks, which is one of the streets, just south of
what this proposed project will be.
I appeared before you in December, speaking in opposition
of the Yale project. My reasoning for objecting to that was
that your planning and zoning committee recommended an NR
for for that. But for whatever reasons, or you were sold to
go NR six and that's what you did.
There's really three pieces of property, looking at this.
There's the Yale project. There's this project and then
there's the Johnson properties that are to the east, and
they follow Oak Valley, all the way north to Audra.
So there's really three pieces to this package. I don't
know that you're looking at all three but we as residents
are. We would we currently see Latimore being extended into
this proposed project area. And I'm thrilled that you're
planning and zoning recommended an NR for.
I would hate for the council to up serve that and change
that to an NR six. I attended the neighborhood meeting, a
week or so ago, and I was in opposition of that and I spoke
about that at the meeting and these were the things I only
can talk about the things that were presented there, but
bring me major concern.
Number one is this is a very high, high residential area
there. They're putting a lot of houses on a small piece of
property. What this looks like is Mac place Lee drive and
Mac drive. That's what this looks like at the meeting they
told us that these were 10 foot setbacks and I asked if
they were 10 foot setbacks for the driveway.
And they said yes. Now I drive an F 150 crew cab. It's 19
feet long, my truck would not fit in that driveway. But yet
the engineer tonight said that those are 20 foot setbacks.
So my truck would fit in that the concern that was echoed
that night was that how many vehicles does each family have
.
And if those are 10 foot driveways, only my Subaru will fit
in the driveway and maybe a smart car. But there's a lot of
people that drive our concern was that there'd be a huge
amount of vehicles parked on the street.
Not only that, but they told us that the streets are 27
feet wide.
And then they're going to have traffic calming devices in
there with a 50 foot lot and two side driveway two drive
ways. That's not a lot of room to park any off street
parking.
I too am concerned with emergency vehicles coming down that
and I would just hate to have anything happen that the
trucks to trucks park opposite each other on the road.
I don't believe would let an emergency vehicle through the
garbage trucks.
I would have trouble getting by two cars parked on our side
of the street on whispering Oaks.
Whispering Oaks is 29 and a half feet wide.
That's that's that's wide.
The other concern that we had was there's no sidewalks in
this project.
And that that the setback was just was just a major concern
, not only for numbers of vehicles, but also for safety
reasons.
So I'm I'm encouraged that the planning and zoning
committee recommended an NR for I would encourage the
council to accept that because we'll be back here again in
the not too distant future when Johnson properties wants to
come and approach the council.
So they already have a precedent of a six on the Yale
properties.
And then this would be a four.
I mean, I don't know if it's even possible.
Maybe the city attorney can help with that.
Is it possible for you to rescind your zoning in our six
for the Yale properties and go back to a four?
I'm afraid the precedent is being set here and it's going
to impact our neighborhood.
Oak Valley will run right straight up into Audra. And so it
directly impacts our traffic flow and the impact on our
neighborhood.
I'll pose your question to the city attorney.
But just just ensure just in brief, there is not a
mechanism to to rescind a zoning once approved by by city
by city council.
I have some other questions. Commissioner Rosal.
Thank you, Charles. Trying to do some quick math.
We called me Victor didn't take long enough.
We can skip you and come back.
No, we'll go.
Okay.
Mr. Stegarth, appreciate you being here and voicing your
concerns.
I unfortunately wasn't at the Yale Commission meeting to
talk to you if you spoke then or not.
If it went to an inner four, as we looked at that be 52
lots, they're proposing 56 lots.
Are you if I understand you correctly, you're OK with the
approval of 52 lots, but not the 56 lots.
Do I understand that correctly?
Help me understand the impact of an additional four lots in
the area.
That would be a significant change.
I'm trying to understand because it's a small percentage of
56.
We're looking at less than 10 percent.
Actually, I'm not qualified to argue that I would just
refer back to the planning and zoning committee lady that
was here last month and said they recommend a four.
So I was in favor of that because it's just consistent with
the area north of Audra and then the Yale and then this
proposed and then East Oaks.
And then the area south of us.
It's just a harmonious geographic section and it's not done
yet.
As I said, the Johnson properties will come up after this.
Thank you.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Stegarth, for your presentation.
I appreciate you bringing up the Johnson properties, which
is to the east of everything.
That's correct.
And I was I was looking at that too.
And you're right.
There's going to be more development in there.
And so sitting the president's important.
Just one quick.
You mentioned that you didn't think there was any sidewalks
in this development, but believe Mr. Fletcher said there
was.
So is that right, Mr. Fletcher?
There will be.
OK.
So I got that from the neighborhood meeting when I asked
the question.
OK.
All right.
But that's good.
OK.
So you're OK.
Yeah.
OK.
Thank you, sir.
Commissioner Ellis.
Thank you, Chair.
Hi there.
So with with an N.R.
four or the N.R.
six overlay is that the applicant discussed with us is
really just a couple of lots different.
So is your concern more with the setback versus two extra
lots being developed?
Can you help us understand that?
And maybe that's where Commissioner Rosell was wanting
clarification as well.
Why an N.R.
four seems I know the neighborhood of Latimore and I know
the neighborhood of Whispering Oaks.
And those neighborhoods do not have the concentration of
short narrow lots and stacking them side
by side ten foot difference between the between the
properties.
It doesn't look like our neighborhood.
It doesn't look like the neighborhood north of us.
It doesn't look like our neighborhood doesn't look like
their neighborhood south of us.
So you see that there's a whole bunch of dominoes being
placed in these lots.
And it doesn't it doesn't look and I think that's what's
important to the planning and zoning and just the visual
concept of our neighborhoods.
And it it just looked like a bunch of dominoes.
It looked like they were all stacked in a row.
A number of our neighbors will have one or two backdoor
neighbors.
So it's just it's just not consistent with the property
lines.
The property lines are 70 by 120.
Thank you for your comments.
I don't see any other questions.
Thank you very much.
This is a public hearing.
Anyone who would like to speak please come forward this
time.
Yes. Good evening commissioners.
My name is David Zoltner and I live at twenty five one
temporary which is in the East Oaks subdivision which is
just south of this development.
Well first of all I find myself very much in agreement with
the staff analysis and all the conclusions that led to this
denial.
Now I've heard a lot of stuff tonight that's kind of
changing this to a certain degree.
Now I've heard the possibility of a of a 56 unit overlay.
But the big problem here just as Commissioner Ellis this is
all about the setbacks the N.R. six is obviously by right
going to allow this developer to use the 10 foot setback.
And the problem here is that the size of these homes during
this public meeting or the neighborhood meeting was
somewhere between fifteen hundred and twenty seven hundred
square feet.
Now twenty seven hundred square feet I'm assuming is
probably going to be a four bedroom home a four bedroom
home with two parking spaces in a 10 foot setback.
You are absolutely guaranteeing on street parking.
It's just going to happen.
Now the N.R. four helped me with the math here but the N.R.
four would allow up to four units.
So we're right at fifty two fifty three units. Now the
maximum by right on N.R. six would be seventy eight or
seventy nine homes.
Now OK if there's an overlay that's something to talk about
.
But my main concern is is the fact that that we're so close
and I heard tonight that this is an N.R. four waiting to
happen in my opinion.
Now if you can't recommend or change or have a developer
agree to an N.R. four you're within you're within two or
three units right now of this N.R. four.
And to make it consistent with that order as states now the
developer already mentioned he may be forced to give up one
or two of these lots for connector a tertiary connector.
So we're within two units of an N.R. four here.
Now I don't know if it's possible to do an N.R. four
variance for only two units.
I hope that's possible otherwise you just throw this thing
all the way open to N.R. six with all the pushback and all
the nonsense and all the setbacks and all the on street
parking.
So please I am opposing the the only N.R. six part of this.
I'm in actually in favor of the development I could easily
be convinced that this is an N.R. four.
But I agree completely with your staff analysis and I would
recommend denial of this N.R. six and hardly encourage you
to talk to this developer about either reducing just the
number of lots by one or two or three to where we can solve
this setback issue which is the number one problem in my
opinion that you're dealing with here.
You are guaranteeing on street.
It's it's you're going to have cars.
The problem is that these garages now become storage units.
And so you've you've got people moving into new homes just
south of me now in this summer oaks division they're moving
into a new house with a two car garage they fill it with
stuff and there's already four cars in the parking in the
street right now.
Do not allow a four bedroom house to be built 10 feet from
a curb please.
Thank you very much.
I have some questions for you Commissioner Roselle.
Thank you sir.
I appreciate you coming up and speaking.
I have a couple questions you said you live in a whispering
oaks.
I live on Timber Trail which is in that same East Oaks.
I'm two blocks I didn't receive a courtesy notice.
And is your street much like the other gentlemen's in which
the trash the trash compost truck is having a tough time
comes up your shoes are plenty of room on your street
currently for emergency services and utility vehicles.
Well, right our street is, you know, Timber Trail is an
older street is 20 years old it's wide and so do you have
on street parking in your neighborhood.
We have on street.
Correct.
Occasionally I mean yeah I mean visitors weekend football
game you bet.
Every now and then there's.
This is the difference between this visitor.
This visitor tally that you often see on these parking
discussions versus, you know, weekday.
So sure, I guess my point to be more direct is, you're
suggesting that if we move it to 52 lots there wouldn't be
any on street parking issues.
I'm suggesting if it was 52 lots under an NR for that that
20 foot setback would be mandatory by your.
And many of the new parking modifications that are going to
City Council, very soon will be designating for cars can be
parked in a driveway in a single family.
So you're creating a problem here.
Now this may be, you know, one of the last that sneaks in
under this new parking or the old parking but it's just you
're creating a problem.
It's my understanding from the developers presentation that
they are going to have a 20 foot setback on the driveway.
Well, that's again if if that becomes a separate condition
under an NR six if you want to make that a you know one of
his conditions, you know, but under the NR six, it doesn't
have to happen.
I'm personally not interested in making that a condition.
I'm just trying to understand your perspective on if it is
a 20 foot setback.
Do you feel that eliminates some of the off street parking?
Absolutely.
Okay, absolutely.
I don't think any single family residents in Denton, by the
way, should have any less than a 20 foot setback.
We've only had the 10 foot since 2002.
That was a big mistake we made about 15 years ago.
And I think we're about to fix that anyway.
Unless this is one of the last that sneaks in with these
little baby front yards and 10 foot driveways.
This is a big problem.
Sure. I understand.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
He can have a seat.
It's fine there.
If you like.
No, it's OK.
In regards to in regards to I'm going to ask the applicant
here shortly about the wide difference in the reported
square footage for the proposed development.
Because you're right.
Fifteen hundred to twenty seven hundred square feet is that
's a pretty wide variance there.
That's a twelve hundred variance.
You can fit another house in that variance there.
So I'd like to know what what the exact is.
But I will tell you this that based off of the property
values surrounding that area about one hundred and twenty
hundred twenty five dollars per square foot seems like what
it's about.
The proposed estimate for value as well as the square
footage that area at one hundred twenty five dollars a
square foot valuation for the types of value of home they
're looking at.
You're looking between 18 and 20 and 18 and 2000 square
foot homes.
Eighteen hundred and two thousand square foot homes.
I think twenty seven hundred might be might be a little bit
high to be worried about.
So I'd actually like to ask that can come back up and
possibly explain why the neighborhood meeting there was a
wide wide variance and what their projected conceptual
square footage per home is.
I can't.
The twenty seven hundred was just information that got back
to me from the neighborhood meeting.
I was not there.
I heard that the twenty seven.
You're good.
Thank you.
So the as far as the square footage goes when you talk
about a variance between fifteen hundred and twenty seven
hundred you're talking about some buyers want a single
story home.
Those some some people want a two story home when you start
talking about a two story home you can get to twenty seven
hundred square feet very quickly just by going vertical.
Just to clarify one point on the driveway setback the city
of Denton when you talk about the front building line the
ten foot is for the front facade of the building.
It's not for the garage.
The garage setback is twenty feet.
So the driveway in any zoning district has to be twenty
feet.
We're perfectly okay.
Listening to the concerns from the residents what we'd like
to do we want to be good neighbors.
We want to be a good development coming in.
What I'd like to propose a request for consideration as we
would like to reduce the total number of lots from fifty
six to fifty four.
That's the two that the gentleman just mentioned.
We would like to institute a twenty foot building line so
that no building no portion of the building is going to be
between that ten and twenty feet.
So the building and the garage has to meet the minimum
twenty foot building setback in that the that the use would
only be single family detached.
So I think those three things hopefully provide some shows
the residents that we're we're trying to come in and bring
a good product a successful product and work with them and
hear their concerns.
Since I currently hold the floor I'll ask just for
clarification. So you're saying that fifty four lots of
twenty foot setback no duplexes no town homes.
That's correct. Thank you.
Okay.
Commissioner Sullivan and I know you had a question for
comment for the applicant.
Yes.
Okay.
I have a hard I guess I'm having a hard time understanding
as I'm looking at the regulations for in our four in our
six every dimension is identical from except for the lot
area and the front yard setback.
And you've addressed that.
That's the biggest concern for a lot of people.
Side yard is the same lot depth is the same lot width is
the same minimum side yard adjacent to the street minimum
rear yard maximum lot coverage virtually every number is
identical.
So I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the you
know the two lots that may or may not happen if in both in
our four in our six the lot width is 50 and the depth is 80
.
I don't understand how you get how you're getting more
houses.
If those have to be the same.
So those are all minimum dimensions. So when we look at
laying out a plan we lay out. So for instance, the builder
profile for this development is a 40 foot pad 75 foot deep
so we take those dimensions, the minimum side yards minimum
side yards on a corner, and we determine what our minimum
lot dimensions are so that 50 by 80 is a minimum within the
development code but a 50 by 80 wouldn't work for the
builder profile that we're looking at.
So when we lay out those lots we have a minimum lot size of
think our minimum is 50 by 120.
And our the majority of them are deeper than that. So, all
the layout that were proposed falls within that those allow
able dimensions that are within the code.
I understand that what you're going to be building is going
to be bigger than what's here. Right, but these are the
minimums and they're identical.
I'm having a hard time understanding where you're taking
out the two or squeezing in two extras when the lot sizes
all have to be the same for in our six or in our four in
our six. And so if, if the 20 foot of the 20 foot is the
only difference and you're willing to give a 20 foot set
back in our four seems like the perfect fit.
You don't have to do anything different because all the
dimensions are the same, except that 20 foot side and in
the economics of it when we talk about adding stuff to
serve future development for the track to the north or to
the east minute ads call so two lots doesn't sound like a
lot but that's two additional lots that the, you know that
the developer has to sell to the builder which is a very,
which can be very significant to the.
The finances of the project.
Okay.
I still understand where those two lots are coming from if
the lot sizes are identical.
What's the difference.
We've got the same amount of land right if we were those
two lots coming from are going to understand since we're
taking them away will either add to the open space.
The lots may be what I'm saying is why would you need to
take them away. If the minimum lot sizes for four and six
is 50 by 80, you're going to have bigger lots.
Right, right. We need the in our six with overlay so that
we can do more than 52. If we are straight in our four
zoning, all those other categories and concerns are allevi
ated but we can the maximum number of lots that we can
develop or 52, because the number of lots that we can do is
52.
Because the maximum density is four units per acre. So
basically the in our six zoning with the overlay condition
allows us to add two additional lots and provide a good
quality neighborhood with open space with a builder pad for
a product that is in line with this area.
So really the whole the whole ask there for versus in our
six versus in our four is just so that we can pick up those
and originally we were asking for four and in discussion
with the applicant. We're, we're saying that we'll, we'll
remove two of those four and go down to 54 is what is what
we're now proposing.
Okay, thank you.
Just for clarification while you're here.
The existing lots around there and what did you say the
density was on those, the arbor estates the density is 4.49
units per acre.
And armor states just just to kind of give you an idea that
their phase was 54 lots, so it's the same as what we're
requesting now, and it was on 12.021 acres.
And this is from the plat from the appraisal district. East
Oaks edition phase one was 34 lots on 7.745 acres, which is
a density of 4.39.
So those existing subdivisions aren't in our for either.
Well, so when those subdivisions were developed the the
zoning districts were different. When they brought all the
zoning districts up to try and conform they kind of looked
at where does that fit most closely to its single family
detached.
It fits an in our four closer than an in our six but it
doesn't meet all the requirements of an in our four zoning
district.
Correct. So those districts are fairly close to what you
all are asking for. When you really crunch the numbers and
do the density of the number of units over the acreage.
It's very similar to what you've asked for. That's correct
and I have the plat I mean the difference is our lots are a
little bit smaller but we're putting open space within the
development, whereas when that development when all your
states and these other developments
were done. There was no open space provided into the
development.
I understand. Thank you for the clarification Commissioner
Ellis. Thank you, Chair. Do you know the average front yard
setback on the adjacent lots that are developed.
I don't I just know that the city of didn't the didn't
development code and I don't know the standards that were
in place and 84 when that development first started, but it
appears that just looking from an aerial that it would be
consistent with to off street
parking spaces so I would assume that it's probably a
minimum of 20 feet setback for the for the driveway but I
don't have an exact answer for you.
So just noticing with the NR for it, it does have that
limitation that it would have to conform to the average of
the adjacent property setback.
I was curious. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. So, Sam the
adjacent developments been about 4.3 4.4 maybe 4.25. So you
reducing it down to a 45 lot on 13 acres would put you at,
sorry, 54 lot on 13 acres, not to do the math.
It's put you to 4.15 correct units per acre. So much less
than the surrounding current once the only difference is
going to be that and your conceptual plan would be that
that you have more open space that will constrict and make
it make those
lots smaller just because there is open space. That's right
and some of the lots may actually be larger in square
footage just because of the depth. So our minimum lot size
would be smaller than theirs, but we would have several
lots that may actually have more square footage
because of the depth. In regards to citizens concerned, the
more depth the better in this scenario. Correct. It puts
the houses further away from the existing development.
Thanks, sir.
I don't have any other questions at this time.
This is a public hearing, anybody who would like to speak,
please come forward at this time.
Well, they're right outside the door and after you speak,
it's not a problem. Just give us your name and address.
I have house on 2508 whispering oaks, just Jason to the
south of this proposed development.
The question I have is the developer, or rather for whoever
would give legal opinion, if you go for an NR6, but this
developer doesn't develop it, somebody else comes in.
And this overlay, as I heard you say, is included in the NR
6. What happens then? Can that overlay be taken away?
I'll let legal weigh in on that.
So just to kind of keep it really brief, it would run like
any other zoning. It attaches to the land. So the zoning
plus overlay district attaches to the land.
The only way to remove that would be to, as any other rez
oning, is to come back and get it rezoned again, including
the overlay district.
So in summary, if you make the NR6 with this 54 unit per
the area overlay, it would, if somebody else came in, one
develop in there, NR6 with duplexes two stories tall, they
wouldn't be able to without coming to the rezoning again.
Even though it's not changing the NR6 part, it would be
removing the other.
Okay. That's all I needed to know.
I think the NR4 is about where the density is. But I do
have a comment about the kind of home, now that I think
about it, that was brought up by, I think it was Mr. Smith,
about the kind of brick houses.
Mr. Beck. Okay. Kind of hard to keep track. Who says what?
But the houses along Whispering Oaks and Lattimore, which
are adjacent to this proposed addition, are all brick
houses in the front and sides, at minimum.
I can't speak about all the back sides.
My concern would be the amount of brick on the houses that
are being developed, just to keep it the same feel of the
neighborhood.
And I thank you.
Don't have any questions. Thank you for your comments, sir.
Again, this is a public hearing. Anyone else who would like
to speak on this item, please come forward at this time.
Please come to the mic and give us your name and address.
My name is Vernon Mamm. I live in 2224 Lattimore. My
concern is Lattimore is a dead end street.
Right now. Is that possible for it to be open all the way
through into new subdivision?
I'll ask a plan staff to come and address if it went on to
the property to the east. Is that what your question is?
That if it continued on to the east, rather than the way it
currently has been presented, if that's a possibility.
I like I said, I live on Lattimore and there's a ton of
young kids that plays out in the street.
They even come from down the drain, which is in two houses
up from me and there's kids came down this drain to play on
Lattimore.
And I'm just thinking that the traffic was if they go in
and open that straight up, the kids are going to have no
place to play other than in their backyard or whatever.
So that was my question and my concern. If they open up L
attimore, there's going to be some people that's going to
move out.
Okay. I'll ask staff to put the overhead up, I guess, of L
attimore and they can help walk through if that's a
possibility and how that might take place.
Okay, we're talking about this. I'm talking about this
street right there. That's Lattimore.
Okay. I believe what the city traffic engineer mentioned in
the work session was that there may be possibility to
extend this road, but we wouldn't know if that's needed
until we get to the site development phase of the project,
which is the next phase planning.
So it could be extended depending on what types of traffic,
what the traffic numbers look like and are not there. But
we wouldn't have that information until this site is more
fleshed out and we can analyze the plan at that point.
So the question would be then, we don't know whether it
could be possibly a street stub out for future connection
to it looks like the street was going to be Oak Valley.
Looks like a valley is the north south to the east right
there.
And when I looked at the mobility plan, there was in a, it
didn't come up as an extension. Okay. But again, based on
what comes out of the traffic impact analysis, it may or
may not be improved.
Okay.
Okay. I have a couple questions. I don't know if this for
staff, Commissioner Ellis.
Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, sir, for your comments.
I think the question is, is there a way to get the traffic
to the site?
I mean, I think that's a good question.
So the northern most east west street doesn't become any
longer than what we've currently got shown.
So.
Continue if you had.
So.
I mean, I think that's a good question.
Typically what happens because we don't like to have those
dead end utilities.
Now, certainly with that, I mean, those utilities could
loop around to the north.
I mean, there's other ways to engineer it.
So, all that being said, it seems as though, to the best of
my knowledge, this development
will align itself very well with the current development in
terms of density.
It's actually a less dense development than what's
currently there.
It seems like they're also taking into consideration to
ensure, through traffic measures and street
construction, to keep traffic down so that kids are safe to
move about, hopefully not
playing in the streets, but move about the streets safely.
And they'll have open space that hopefully can provide an
area for those kids that they
don't have to move out of the neighborhood, but they
actually have a new place that they
can play.
So, with that, I will move that this is approved.
How do I...
I'll clarify this.
This was recommended as a denial, correct?
So, my motion is to not...
Just change your motion.
Okay, perfect.
So, I move to approve this request as an NR6 with an
overlay condition that only single-family
detached buildings are built with a maximum of 54 lots.
Would you entertain a friendly amendment?
It depends.
Okay, I think the other condition that was requested was to
have the 20-foot front yard
setback.
Would you add that for a total of three conditions to your
suggested motion of approval?
Can that be added to the overlay, the build setback?
Okay.
Yes, I will entertain that amendment and require with this
motion an NR6 with only single-family
detached buildings constructed at a maximum of 54 lots and
a build line of 20-foot setback.
Yep, front yard.
Front yard.
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Being that the applicant has been extremely gracious in
making some compromise to be able
to do this and knowing now that even the existing
surrounding neighborhoods shouldn't even be
classified as NR4 with their density, this is going to be a
less dense area than the
surrounding areas based off the math and what it shows.
I think it'd be hard for us to, even though yes, we could
go and vote as an NR4.
I think it'd be incongruent as well as I was the one who
made the motion on the past on
the Yale project for the NR6 approval because of its
density being close to 4.2.
Going through and saying, "They have to buy by NR4, but
your neighbors just to the north
that get the NR6 plus the overlay," doesn't seem very congr
uent with that area.
So I will make a second motion, please.
Okay.
We have a first and a second for approval with the three
conditions stated.
Any further discussion?
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Chair.
Again, I'd like to thank everybody for coming down and
speaking out.
It's essential for us to make a good sound decision.
I'd like Commissioner Rosell, I too was opposed to the NR6,
but considering the concessions
that are made here, I think we have what both sides are
going to be happy with.
We've got the 20-foot setback.
We got the almost exact number of houses as an NR4 with the
overlay in there, and that
will be set in stone.
So the other consideration that we can't look at now
because this is the zoning thing, but
we can look at the design standards was the issue of what
the houses are going to look
like, and we can discuss that then.
Hopefully the developer will keep in mind what Mr. Potters
has said about BRIC, and
we'll deal with that at that time.
But again, I can go along with this motion myself.
Thank you.
Commissioner Sanchez.
Yeah, I think we've had a healthy discussion here tonight.
Listening to the developer and listening to the concerns of
the community, I think like
everybody else, I think they have met some of your concerns
, a lot of the concerns that
were brought forward.
And therefore, I think that personally I'll be voting for
it because I think because of
the overlays, that pretty much I think will satisfy a lot
of people that brought concerns
tonight.
Commissioner Sullivan.
Yes, thank you all for showing up.
I didn't hear a single voice about the number of homes
being built, but I did hear setbacks,
widths, depths, things of that nature.
And I think that if the applicant is willing to go along
with the conditions that were
put forth, where the setback is 20 feet, everything else is
what everybody I think has been, I
think, appeased to some degree that everybody's getting
what everybody wants and that nobody's
having to give up anything other than two houses.
Sorry.
But so I think at this point, I would be voting for it as
well.
Commissioner Ellis.
Thank you, Chair.
Not a whole lot more to add than was already said, other
than I will support it as well.
I think it's a good in-fill decision, especially with the
restrictions on it.
And as involved as you have been tonight, those of you who
live in the area, it's really important
that we hear you.
And please stay involved with the development.
Come and hear the platting.
It'll be presented in the going forwards, the preliminary
and the final.
Please stay tuned and pay attention to that.
And then after that, the site plan.
Thank you.
We have a first and a second for approval with three
conditions and seeing no further
discussion, I will call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
Good luck with your project and thank you to all the
neighbors for coming out.
I hope we were able to find a good compromise at work for
everyone.
So thank you all for coming out.
Again in our public hearing section, we have three other
items, item B, C and D that are
going to be renoticed and will not be heard tonight.
And with that said, that will move us to our project matrix
.
Commissioner Smith.
I mentioned it last time in regards to having talking about
changes to the code for neighborhood
meetings.
I thought I was going to get up on the matrix, but you
might have answered it last time.
Did you answer that last time that we're in the process of
including them in the code?
Yeah, we're looking at that as part of the DDC rewrite.
Got it.
Great.
Thank you.
So we'll be back when we get there.
Commissioner Beck.
Thanks, Chair.
I just need to go on record date because I've been
approached by people that share my concern
about the parking minimum thing.
So I know we talked about it last time and just want to
keep it in the purview of where
we're going.
I thought if it wasn't sent, I will make sure it's sent to
tomorrow.
In addition, actually to go back to the neighborhood
meetings, one thing that we're doing now is
what we will be doing within the next week.
When we prepare the notifications that go out to the 200
and 500, in the past we've
provided the list that the applicant has asked for for the
neighborhood meeting.
What we're going to be doing now is just giving that to
them right up front.
While we can't require it, we are going to be saying, you
know, we highly recommend a
neighborhood meeting.
Here's the list of everyone that's going to be getting it.
So they have it up front and they don't have to ask for it
later on.
Okay.
Commissioner Ellis.
Thank you, Chair.
Just a couple of bringing things up again.
With regard to the tree code, I do hope Deborah's right
that we are going to hear that soon.
I sit on a small area planning committee and the chatter
last week was that the whole thing
is dead.
So I would love to -- I assured them it wasn't, but I would
love something concrete to be
able to share with these people who are stating this.
I'll put it on the record.
The draft will be heard in a workshop at the next meeting.
And so similar to what we did with Deborah's item this
evening where we sort of staggered
the work session to go over the whole proposed and then
come back two weeks later.
That's exactly what we'll be doing with the tree code
update.
And so we're still looking at modifying some of the numbers
and making sure it's sort of
fair and equitable for everybody because it is a big jump,
some of the percentages.
And so we just want to make sure that as we move forward,
we've looked at all angles.
Excellent.
I have one more.
Just given our discussion at work session, could we maybe
have a little work session
on traffic impact fees and how they're collected and what
fund it sits in and who manages that
and how it's spent?
And that just seems to be coming up more and more.
Yes.
In fact, I mentioned it to Pre-Kim.
I said I think we need to come back and do a separate item
just on impact fee.
Anybody else?
Okay.
With that at 8.05, I will close our meeting tonight.
Thank you everyone for coming out.