Zoning Commission meeting for February 7th 2018. This
meeting has been duly
posted and we do have a quorum present and I will call us
to order at 5 o 1. We
are going to go into our work session and our first order
of business will be
to receive clarification of agenda items listed on our
meeting this evening. Does
anybody have I guess just to start kind of at the beginning
and then we'll come back
to our work session reports. Does anybody have any comments
changes on our minutes
of our last meeting? How about plats on the consent agenda?
All right we're gonna make good time this evening. Public
hearings item A. So
Rayser investments by Shandrian. Anybody have questions on
this item? This is a
parcel up on I think on University for some restaurant pads
.
Questions?
Nope? Okay. Then we've got 4B, Denture Search Care. It's
the apartments.
You have some questions on that? Okay.
Do you all want to do let me back up do we want to to do
like a small
presentation on these items whether we have questions or
not or just kind of go
through? Do? Okay. Do y'all want to want to back up and
then on 4A and have
Shandrian just do an initial presentation on the the Rayser
or are you okay with
that being pretty straightforward and going on here to 4B?
I am on that one. Okay.
Well let's stay on 4B with Haley and we'll do presentation
on on this one.
Okay together. So we can go through both of those. Just for
clarification we'll
take those as two separate votes. So yes. Yeah one
presentation with two votes. Okay.
All right so there are two requests for this property. The
rezoning is a request
to change from community mixed-use general to neighborhood
residential
mixed-use and that is for the entire 11.4 acres that's
outlined in red on the
map. The SUP request is to allow for a multifamily use and
it is only for 10.6
8 out of that total acreage so that's the yellow boundary
you see. It is
excluding a medical office that is existing down in the
southeast corner of
the property. And just to give you a reference this is I-35
here on the north,
Sandbass Boulevard on the west, and Londonderry Drive on
the south. So the
rezoning as I mentioned would be from CMG to NRMU so here's
a look of what
that would look like on the zoning map. For rezoning as you
know there's two
criteria for approval. Consistency with the future land use
plan and then the
facilitation of public infrastructure. The future land use
for this area is
community mixed-use which is intended to provide a mixture
of commercial
residential and service uses. The NRMU district does fit
within that. It
provides for a variety of residential uses as well as
commercial uses that
are at a similar scale to CMG so lot coverage building
height things like
that are generally the same between the two districts.
Looking at infrastructure
in the area there are our water and sewer immediately
available to the
property. The red lines on the map being existing sewer and
blue being the water
lines. Both Sandbass and Londonderry are currently two lane
undivided roads.
They're both collector streets so they're intended to say
two lane undivided with
sidewalks. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. When you say
two lane undivided it's
designed just for one car each way? Yes sir yeah just one
lane of traffic each
way with no median in between. I went by there today but it
seems like it's wide
enough where you could actually create two lanes each way.
Is that considering all the
traffic we've got over there and are fixing to generate
more. I'm just wondering if that's a...and this may not be
the time to raise it but is that something to consider?
These type of streets are typically designed wide enough to
have one lane of traffic going each way with
parking and sidewalks on each side would be the ultimate
intent for that roadway.
Okay okay thanks. Commissioner Sanchez. Yes I was looking
at the what it says
upland habitat area of minimum of 10 acres in size and
contains remnants of
cross timber habitat. How much when it says remnants is a
percentage of upland
habitat which I'm assuming because we're in cross timbers
it would be a mixture
of cross oak and blackjack oaks is that I was trying to
figure that out.
To my knowledge there's no upland habitat on this property.
Okay because I went up
there I drove by there and there's a little that whole top
area is a lot of
blackjack and post oaks and and that's to me upland habitat
for the cross
timbers. What do you all define upland habitat? For it to
be upland habitat it
has to be I believe that's 10 contiguous acres so this
entire property would have
had to been covered in that for it to even possibly be
considered upland
habitat so there are a large amount of trees and they will
have to meet the
city's tree preservation requirements but it doesn't meet
that 10 acre
contiguous lump of you know habitat to be qualified as up
land. Okay because what
it says a minimum of 10 acres in size that contains
remnants so the whole 10
acres or is it remnants within those 10 acres? Please come
on up to the mic Bob.
When it's talking about remnants it's talking about the
whole eco region of
the cross timbers region which goes up from Oklahoma down
into Texas we have
remnants of it in this area. Right right. It's not talking
about remnants within
that 10 acres it's got to be a 10 contiguous acre block of
the post oak
and blackjack. Correct. Okay that's and if you look at that
area right there that
north side from that's pretty contiguous and I mean it's
not large oaks but they
are post oak and blackjack oaks. I'm not disagreeing with
you. No I'm a tree
guy. I wish I was things were written a little different
but the way our ESA
regulations are written it's got to be a 10 contiguous acre
block. Okay. So it
doesn't fall on our map if we pull up our ESA map it won't
fall in there. Okay
okay.
So looking at the compatibility of the request as I
mentioned NRMU and CMG are
very similar they're consistent in terms of lot coverage
landscaping requirements
and the lot dimensions and building height that would be
permitted there so
it's going to be a fairly comparable product in either
zoning district. The
proposed use is permitted under CMG but there is a
limitation that would require
ground floor commercial uses be developed on both Sam Bass
and Londonderry.
Given this area and how well established it is with multif
amily and then the
industrial use across Sam Bass we felt like commercials not
likely to survive
on the ground floor there it's not a very compact walkable
environment where
you would typically get that type of product. So staff is
recommending
approval of the request it is consistent with the goals and
objectives of the
Denton plan 2030 and then moving into the second aspect of
their request and
the reason for the rezoning would be to me Commissioner
Roselle. Thank you chair
real fast Haley. Yeah. And the backup it has that
recommendation for the
rezoning has a condition of the SUP being approved. Did my
page print out
weird or I don't think there's a condition on the rezoning
but it does
say staff recommends approval the SUP and I don't know if
that was just a... It
might be a trying to get to that page.
Yeah so the recommendation is just kind of lumped together
because we did it as
one report so the rezoning recommendation is with no
conditions
and then the SUP is a recommendation with a condition. Okay
gotcha thank you.
Yeah so the SUP would be for a straight multifamily use
with no associated
commercial development. Our criteria for approval of an SUP
is kind of a
compatibility analysis between the requested use and the
surrounding
properties to ensure it wouldn't impede development of
other properties, wouldn't
generate any nuisances and would be generally compatible.
So looking at the
site plan for this what they've proposed here is kind of a
second phase of the
existing Coventry departments or apartments. They're
currently accessible
off of I-35. Here on this map they would be located just on
the top side here so
you can see there is a drive that would be connecting
between the two
developments so that amenities could be shared between them
. They're proposing
right now at 283 units that puts them at about 26 units per
acre so below the 30
maximum for NRMU. It would be a mixture of one two and
three bedroom units.
They're proposing a total of six buildings they'd be a
mixture of three
and four stories in height. I believe the four stories
would be here along Sam Bass
and the site would maintain a total of about 38% landsca
ping. You can see the
way they've configured them as L-shaped buildings that each
have their own
courtyard. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. You said the
density was 30 per
acre for residents for an NRMU but aren't we switching it
to an NRMU? We want to go
from a CMG to an NRMU 12 which would have a lower density.
The request
is for NRMU not NRMU 12. Okay then what's on here is wrong.
Yeah the request is for NRMU.
Okay okay. Yeah so CMG doesn't actually have a maximum
density so they are
imposing with this rezoning a maximum of 30 units per acre
on the property. Now by
unit excuse me just follow up by unit we're talking about
each apartment? Yes.
Okay thank you. So we found that the request for this use
is consistent with the
Benton plan 2030. It does call for the provision of higher
density housing in
areas that won't impact established single-family
neighborhoods with this
being an area that has a mixture of existing multifamily
and even some
industrial across the street there would be no
neighborhoods affected by this
higher density there. The development would be consistent
with the existing
land use pattern and it would be required to comply with
all other
provisions of the DDCs parking landscaping tree
preservation and all of
our site design requirements and the use would generally be
unlikely to generate
any nuisances that you know things that aren't already in
the area with the
existing multifamily development. We did send notification
for the request before
the meeting I passed out the one response that we'd
received which was a
favorable request from the former property owner here on
the south side.
I believe the transaction was recent so he received that
notice and let us know
that he was in support of it. The applicant did hold a
neighborhood meeting
this past Monday. I attended the meeting and there were
representatives from two
adjoining apartment complexes that came just to see what
the proposal was they
didn't voice any opinions either way about it. And staff is
recommending
approval of the SUP with the condition that this site plan
we saw here tonight
would be considered conditional so a full site plan submitt
al would still be
conceptual. They would still do the full site plan submitt
al just to make
sure they comply with all aspects of the DDC and that it's
generally conforming
to what was presented here tonight. And I can stand for any
other questions.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. I was just curious just
as an item of interest
I'm sure everybody noticed that this area was zoned this
whole area is
zoned CMG and I asked you about you know evidently these
apartments that are
there now don't have commercial properties underneath them
because they
were built prior to that but when I look at the future land
use map and seeing
what we had there why wasn't it considered to change it at
that time from
CMG to NRMU knowing that we had pretty much that condition
there already?
All the other zonings occurred at the with the citywide rez
oning in 2002 and
as you mentioned all those apartments that are there did
predate that rezoning
and CMG is generally considered the most directly
compatible with community
mixed-use but there are as with all of our future land use
destinations there's
multiple districts that could fall into that. I suspect
just given the the close
proximity to the highway and the mix of uses in that area
that they felt CMG was
probably appropriate for it. Okay thanks. Commissioner Ros
sell. You sure? Go ahead.
So if I understood you correctly apartments can be built in
CMG and so
I'm wondering if this agenda item is clear enough to
understand what the
SUP is for because the SUP just says to allow multifamily
use but that's allowed
in CMG correct? Yes so there are within CMG there are two
limitations the L6 and
L4 so it either has to be mixed use or have an SUP under L4
and then L6
requires specifically ground floor commercial so the rez
oning is to
eliminate L6 essentially because under NRMU L4 still
applies so they still
have to either do mixed use or obtain the SUP. It's just
getting rid of that
ground floor commercial requirement. I think I understand
that I just I hope
that the do we need to word that in our motion because it
says staff recommends
approval the rezoning request which I understand then it
says staff recommends
approval the SUP request the following conditions but that
the condition
doesn't necessarily address ground floor use or the L6
requirement. I don't know
if that's needed or not I'm just curious if I just read
this I'm not sure that's
stated as clearly as possible. The SUP could would only
apply if the rezoning is
obtained so once the rezoning is obtained L6 goes away and
there would no longer
be any requirement under the current zoning for ground
floor commercial so we
didn't feel the need to specify that. So any SUP regardless
of what the
SUP is for eliminates L6 on the property? Am I
understanding that? The rezoning
itself is what would eliminate limitation six because that
only applies
under CMG it doesn't apply under NRMU so if the first
request is approved that
limitation goes away. Gotcha thank you. That's along the
lines of where my
question was going and looking a little farther ahead on
our agenda our agenda
item E is going to be the repeal of the requirement of the
L6 and so my question
is do you still have to have an SUP and CMG to do multif
amily or not? L4 would
still be in place even if L6 is repealed so the it would
either have to be a
mixed-use development or obtain an SUP. Okay but then they
are putting a
limitation on themselves by essentially down zoning from CM
G to NRMU as far as
the number of units. Yes they're imposing that density
limitation then. Where they
don't have that in CMG. Yes. Are they aware that this item
E is coming before
us this evening on their zoning and they've decided just to
continue forward?
Yeah the timelines for the two requests we're gonna run
concurrently so they
decided just to go ahead and move forward with their
request and see how it goes.
Okay great thank you. Any other questions Commissioner Beck
? Thank you chair. Going
back to the roads again it mentions in our material it
doesn't have a page
under site that it says commercial mixed-use collectors are
intended to
be two lane roadways with parking along each side and total
73 be a driveway
which is what you told me. This type of road is designed to
handle between 1,000
and 8,000 vehicles per day and it's full width. Do we know
how close we are to
that now? Again everything that's over there are we getting
precariously close
to that or we still got a long ways to go? I don't recall
the exact width of that
right away I could try to measure that. Well I'm just gonna
know is with what's there
can does it handle are we getting precariously close to
that 8,000? Oh as far as the trips I
haven't seen any trip calculations for this. To date I'm
not sure what the
current capacity or use of Londonderry or San Bas is.
Should we be considering
that considering that there's a lot of traffic over there
these roads should be
able to handle it but we're building some more would it be
out of place to
say let's take a look at it make sure we're not going over
the limit you know how we
run into these problems with people say there's too many
cars on the road now
and I wouldn't disagree with that but as a P&Z Commission
could we could we ask
for that to see where we're at with a traffic analysis on
the existing roads now?
I'll ask staff to address that. Yeah I don't think there's
any just in our you know
initial discussions there there in the near future there
aren't any specific
plans to widen it right now I know they are looking at the
light on Teasley
there's the light at Londonderry where traffic kind of gets
congested with
folks making the left in the morning school just to the
school and then at
before you get to Lillian for I guess when that transitions
into right before
35 in between the two apartment complexes there's another
light so our
engine engineering is is looking at the possibility of
having that light taken
out because of the timing issue because you have almost
really three lights
right in a row and and they net particularly in the morning
and I go
that way every morning it they're never timed correctly and
so it really causes
causes some some issues but in the very near future other
than other than that
it's if they're not at that at those levels yet and we don
't think we need to
do that now considering that we're fixing to add to that
not at not at this
time in a sense it's also it were also looking at it's sort
of a down zone from
from the most intense that they could do today by right
okay again I just want to
point out under the current zoning if they did develop they
would be required
to have that ground floor commercial which would further
increase the traffic
over what would be proposed here no no I you know I don't
disagree going to an
NRM you is okay I'm just saying the roads that are there
are expected to
handle between one and eight thousand vehicles per day at
the full load and
when you throw in the school traffic with people don't even
live there you
know or how how closer do we to that now and are we so
close that by adding 30
units per acre over there you know a few more with a lot
more traffic are we
gonna be bumping close to the limit are we still safe you
need to worry about
that in the future I guess is what I'm asking and you don't
think we do rich
no I think as we you know part of the problem we don't have
a lot of traffic
that unfortunately and I know that that pre-tem is working
on getting that I
was just trying to think just based on the current density
whether or not we
can determine just based on trips theoretically where they
could be but we
don't have any any current traffic traffic counts I'll step
in here and kind
of watch over me and help me under the current code the
only thing that this
development would be responsible for is where they actually
attached to Sam Bass
or Londonderry correct they don't have any responsibility
from anything on
Londonderry to the West and they don't have any
responsibility on the Sam Bass
southern portion correct so if to answer from my point of
view your question the
only thing that we have an ability to do something is in
the width where they
border Sam Bass or the width where they border London
perimeter correct and it
gets back to the same issue we've talked about the last
several times is whose
responsibility is to do that they'll have to do I assume a
TIA based on the
number of trips because of the number of units and then the
city will decide
whether they won't take the fees off of the number of units
and whether we want
to spend it and do improvements to Sam Bass and Londonderry
or somewhere else
within the area that this parcel those improvements have to
be done in that
area or where they're going to ask them to do perimeter
improvements on their
properties and that's my understanding of how that works
correct and I don't disagree that I wasn't necessarily
trying to dump this
on the developer at all in fact I was kind of expecting the
city to step in
here and do this kind of analysis to see that if we're
reaching the limit to what
these roads can handle should we be building which I don't
think we are but
I just I'm curious to how close we are right now so I was
really kind of
expecting the city to take a look at this and not so much
expecting the
developer so that's that's that was where I was coming from
my comment is
there's a city will de facto they're going to require the
developer to do a
TIA and study the whole area and give the data to the city
okay now we'll help
or we'll pay for it now we'll help with the numbers to show
where we're at that
will give current traffic counts okay
Commissioner yeah okay sure Commissioner Sullivan so let me
get this straight
we've got the numbers here is designed to handle a hundred
a thousand eight
thousand vehicles but we have no clue how many vehicles are
there we have no
clue who's going to be responsible if ever what's the point
if we never have
traffic surveys we never know how many cars are actually
there we don't know
how many cars are going to be added everybody's flying
blind I guess I'm
just baffled and bewildered over the fact that we even have
the numbers in
here because it makes no difference I think it kind of goes
back to the fact
that ironic right if they were to add more development to
the site ie
commercial which would be more even intensive than then
additional
residential units we wouldn't we wouldn't even be we wouldn
't even be here today
they would just be able to go in as of right and so that's
sort of what we
looked at it's really sort of a down zone of what they
could potentially
build it at the max I can't I mean we just don't have
unfortunately we don't
have that data to say you know right now the road is at a
level of service C by
adding X number of trips it's going to degrade it to you
know whatever a D or
it's going to maintain it at a C right now we don't we're
in the process of
putting all of that together I'm just confused where the
planning comes into
play we got planning and zoning we zone but we don't plan
we're getting there
don't play it because nobody does any studies to tell us
where we are to find
out whether or not all these apartments are going to add
anything to the traffic
load which we know they will and at the same time they're
going to take away a
light which is the only thing that controls it coming in
and off of
streets you know all of that together makes I have a hard
time where the
planning is involved if I might mr. chair sure Scott
McDonald I'm just to
touch on that we absolutely have been having the
conversations about doing a
traffic study and looking at the entire city we haven't we
haven't taken a
comprehensive approach to traffic management we're working
site by site
the numbers that you have before you ultimately are set up
for what the road
will handle as we propose this or the applicants proposing
this it's a less
intense use than what is eligible by right that's why staff
s confident in the
fact that this isn't going to create a burden it actually
would lessen some
potential burden and we will we will and have already had
the conversations about
how it is to take the approach to traffic management across
the city so
we've got some some steps that we need to take and some
actions that we intend
to take to look at that more comprehensively we recognize
there's a
deficiency in our traffic management it's just the steps to
get there and as
we take the steps and really trying to look at the overall
zoning of the city
and the planning and and tying it to the dent in 2030 that
's a component of that
that we will be looking at in the very very near future
hope that helps
any other questions on B or C for Haley on this item thank
you Haley item D just
for my clarification I assume we'll open this item and then
we will do a vote to
postpone to date certain of February 21st okay and leave
open okay
that will take us to E and Haley all right so very closely
related to what we
just talked about staff is proposing an amendment to the
Denton Development
Code to kind of provide some immediate relief for some some
projects going on
in here in town so the request is to consider making a
recommendation to City
Council regarding a proposed revision to subchapter 5
specifically to our
limitations that apply to mixed-use development
requirements for
multifamily so just a little bit of background that we kind
of touched on
with the last project we currently have two limitations
that can apply to the
multifamily use that impose mixed-use restrictions on them
L4 requires in
certain districts that multifamilies only permitted either
with an SUP as we
just saw or as part of a mixed-use development unless it
can meet one of
these other criteria that it very rarely can being part of
a master plan
development or if it received approval prior to 2005 or as
part of a small area
plan so really those top two are what is most often seen
then the other
limitation is limitation 6 that permits multifamily only on
the second story and
above when it has an office retail or other commercial use
on the ground floor
along any Avenue collector or arterial Street so other than
neighborhood
residential streets though that pretty much covers every
street type that we
would see in here in the city so just to look at how these
apply across the code
you can see L4 applies in all of our mixed-use districts
from the
neighborhood residential through the community mixed use
and the regional
mixed-use districts L6 supplies only in CMG CME RCCN and R
CCD and then the only
other limitation we have is within NRMU and SUP is required
so regardless of
the whether they did mixed use the SUP is required in that
district so staff is
proposing to remove L6 from all of those districts where it
applies just within
the past two years 2016 and 2017 we had five rezoning cases
that were applied
for we've had countless other projects that have come in as
pre-development
meetings or just as people calling and asking about
property that have been
squashed because of that ground floor commercial
requirement looking at how
this requirement applies across the city remember it
applied in the community
mixed use in the regional districts so essentially all of
the the purple the
kind of fuchsia color and then the light pink that you see
on the map is where
that L6 would apply just keeping in mind that our
comprehensive plan does call
for a mixture of housing types because we are a city with
diverse housing needs
and then looking at where this limitation applies on mostly
on the
outskirts of the city it doesn't make the most sense
potentially for ground
floor commercial to be in these areas. Commissioner Ellis.
Thank you Chair.
So on that note when was this put into place because I was
trying to get a
context on you know when you look at that zoning map this
limitation doesn't
make any sense at all. It has been there since the code was
adopted in 2002.
Trying to get what was the intent because it just when you
it just doesn't
makes it makes great sense downtown when you when you you
know when you've got
those compact places but yeah boy that doesn't make any
sense so yeah this is a
good thing. So yeah now that you have an idea of where that
applies looking a
little more specifically like you just said we see this
type of development
where it is not required in downtown and compact walkable
environments. So just
some examples you know we have several of these downtown
but you know on
Hickory and Locust the two that are doing very well. It
makes sense in those
areas where people are out walking to get to these things
and you see here on
the bottom examples of where properties where this is
specifically required on
Brinker and then out on loop 288. Ground floor commercial
isn't necessarily
feasible in those places. The intent of that limitation
wouldn't really be
served well in those areas. Commissioner Beck. Thank you
chair. Kind of pulling in
on Commissioner Elst's comment and I agree that L6 is a
pain in the butt you know
in some areas but if we remove this the downtown area is a
good area to use this.
Do we lose it there too and they can just go ahead and
build apartments in
without the commercial development? That limitation does
not apply in the
downtown districts at all. So there's nothing requiring
that that type of
development occur there it just naturally does because of
the environment.
Okay so we don't have to worry about that. Yeah multi-
family can go in with or without
ground floor commercial in downtown. Can go in with or
without? Yes. Ground floor?
Okay. Yeah the use is permitted by right in our downtown
districts. It just so
happens that because of the nature of downtown we do see
the ground floor commercial.
Okay okay thank you. Haley if I make it's market driven the
property owner decides
whether they want to include that in their project or say
you know what I
don't think it's a viable option and we're just gonna do
straight multi-family.
Certainly. That correct? Certainly. Yeah and just to give
you a little peace of
mind if you remember back to the table L4 would still apply
in all of these
districts so the multi-family use itself would still either
come before you and
City Council as an SUP or it would be part of a larger
mixed use development
providing that it meets the definition of mixed use which
is simply three or
more interrelated and compatible uses on a property but it
can be vertically or
horizontally mixed. Commissioner Rossell. Thank you chair.
I know you have listed
here in the back of the different zones but remember serves
me correctly multi-
family is not allowed by right in any zoning classification
in the city
correct? All multi-family has to be SUP? No in the downtown
districts it has a
limitation but it's just a limitation related to density
calculation. Okay. So it
could occur in like the DCG district or in the DR2. All
other areas has to come
before us for the SUP or mixed use development. That is
correct. Or the others.
That is correct yeah. The downtown districts would be the
only ones really
excluded from this. Thanks. So yeah as I was saying you L4
would still apply in
all of these districts so there's still that extra level of
scrutiny it either
has to be meet the definition of mixed use which is very
specific or it would
have to come before you as an SUP. We did publish
notification about the requests
didn't receive any responses to it and we are recommending
approval so can
answer any questions. Commissioner Beck. Okay well I was
confused and I was under
the impression we were gonna get rid of L4 and L6 you're
just wanting to remove
L6. Just L6. Gotcha. Just on density NRMU allows 12 units
per acre NRMU allows 30
units per acre. So CMG what's the density on that? There is
no maximum density in
the community mixed use district so multifamily could
develop on a site at
whatever density it wanted so long as they could provide
adequate parking for
it. Parking would be the kind of natural limit. Yeah okay
all right thanks.
Any other questions for Haley on this item? Okay with that
our item F is going
to tie into the work session that we have on sub chapter 17
and I'll just ask
Deborah if you're getting ready I don't know how long you
think your presentation
will be if we should go ahead and break and get food and
get started if you have
quite a bit or if we... I have like two or three more
slides to go. We left at the upland
habitat discussion this time that's where we're going to
retake the the
discussion and then after that I believe will be the
criteria for approval of
alternative ESA plans. So you I can wait until you are you
know ready to eat is
completely up to you. I just want to take a break to eat or
you want to press on
through and see where we go and then we have to we may have
to stop you at 615
or something if we're running long and do a quick eat. Okay
let's go and get
started if you got don't mind.
Good evening Commission my name is Deborah Vera I'm with
the Environmental
Services Department. Last time two weeks ago we started
going over the
changes made to or proposed changes to sub chapter 17. We
stopped at the
discussion of upland habitat and I'm going to resume with a
definition
because I believe there was some concerns about the changes
and why would
apply. Currently the definition of a of upland habitat is
areas of minimum of
10 acres in size that contain remnants of the Easter cross
timber habitat. We
have revised the definition just a little bit just to take
out the eastern
part of it and just have the entire cross timber habitat.
However in
practicality what you will see present in Denton would
pretty much correspond to
what is considered Easter cross timber. So we have not
changed the species we
have not changed the minimum area that is required so in
that regard the
definition stays the same. I believe Commissioner Sanchez
was concerned about
providing definition if you look into 17.5 we'll see all
the four type of
eases defined in that section including upland habitat. Yes
sir.
Commissioner Sanchez. Still reading that it says areas of
minimum 10 acres in
size okay you're talking about 10 acres that contain
remnants so it's referring
to the 10 acres the way I read it that refers to the 10
acres it doesn't
refer to as we were told earlier that a 10 acre remnant is
we're looking at the
whole cross timbers area we're looking at just these 10
acres and it's kind of
confusing the way it's at least for me it is okay because
it's referring to the
10 acres and the remnants are referring to the 10 acres it
's not referring to
the whole cross timbers okay so it should be clarified a
little bit better.
Sure we can we can rework that definition such as areas
typically found or
habitats are typically found in areas of the Easter cross
timber habitat of a 10
acres in size you want that definition to be reworks in
that way will be clear.
I think it'd be it helped to be a little bit clearer I mean
I may be just
as far as you know I may just not be understanding it but
that's it seems to
me it refers to the 10 acres when you're talking about
remnants.
Okay what we can do is I can rework the ordinance and when
if you decide to make a
recommendation we can add that amendment as a part of the
of the motion is that
something that you would like? Sure Commissioner Ellis.
Thank You Chair I
don't know that it has to be reworked that much but maybe I
think Bob used the
word contiguous I mean maybe you just need to add just a
little bit clearer
definition so that when someone reads it they have a
picture in their mind that
it's 10 acres of contiguous. Okay okay we can do that let
us work out during the
now on a hearing and we will provide some new language for
you. So what one of
the substantial changes is right now currently we require
the preservation of
upland habitat if you were to develop residential
development meaning
multifamily 2f single-family homes. Any non-residential
development that will
encroach into a upland area designated upland habitat they
don't have to
preserve the 50%. When we talk about the preservation of
the upland habitat we
not only look in the preservation of the tree canopy but we
also look into the
preservation of the habitat on the understory because
ultimately we are
looking to the preservation of the viability of the entire
habitat ecosystem
present. The proposed changes would maintain the 50%
preservation of the
residential as is currently stated in the code however we
have staff and the
COE have given the the direction to actually require the
preservation the
30% preservation of upland habitat for non-residential
development. The 30% we
kind of landed on the 30% because we were looking at what
the new tree code
was looking as a preservation and they agree and they were
having the 30%.
Previously two weeks ago we discussed the changes to the
credit section and
let's say that you have a non-residential development encro
aching
into an upland habitat if they were to preserve the 30%
that will actually make
them comply with the tree code anyway so the two will
actually match. But
definitely this is one of the major changes policy wise
that the proposed
changes are you know showing. Commissioner Roselle. Thank
you chair if I
understand this correctly a non-residential development
there is no
increased measure to protect upland habitat apart from any
other standard
trees on the property. Correct if right now somebody were
to develop a
non-residential development what they have to preserve is
the tree based on
the tree code okay and they can't they have a minimum
percentage of preservation
that could be further reduced if they pay into the tree
fund okay but the
habitat per se is not protected. What you are protecting
under the tree code is
actually the tree canopy not the habitat. So if I
understand correctly if a
residential element goes in they have to maintain 50% cont
iguous. Correct they
pick which part is contiguous we don't designate that. Well
part is strongly
encouraged. Correct. And then the non-residential upland
habitat really
doesn't even matter. Correct. Can you help me understand
why a more intensive use
of the property there's not a stronger inclination to
protect the habitat? Yeah
in 2002 when the code was first draft the City Council at
the moment understood
that when you buy a tree lot in a residential lot you most
of the time you
are paying a premium for it therefore they saw a direct
compensation for the
making the developer to preserve those areas because they
will be somehow
compensated economically because they will be paid a
premium for it. In
residential in commercial development that is a little bit
different that
doesn't play out differently. The other aspects that I
remember be part of the
conversation at that time was that sometimes developers
come with a preset
site plan that they would like to to to develop and not
everybody it seems or
what seem to be open to tweak those site plans to actually
incorporate the ESA in
it. So for those two factors the City Council at the time
decided to
only require the preservation the mandatory preservation to
residential
development. However I think that we all have seen
successful commercial
developers who have actually incorporated the trees as a
part of the
plan those side seems to be more aesthetically pleasing. I
think that it
adds value to it when you are working with a existing
established area. So
that's that's one of the reasons that I think we decided to
just to take an
approach. However in the same spirit to not to tax
developers or tag them twice
three tree code and upland habitat then we we are
consistent on the percentage.
By meeting the 30% of upland habitat they will also meet
what the tree code
is looking to to have to require. So personally have have
some friction with
that thought process but that that friction would probably
be helped
defined a little bit to know what is the overlay of upland
habitat in our city to
commercial uses. If there's not a lot of upland habitat in
zoned commercial areas
then this issue kind of solves itself and it might be an
uphill battle I don't
need to fight but it does create a little bit of concern in
my mind that
there's economic reasons for our developers remarketing or
or whatever it
is rather than actually protecting the environment. It
seems like the upland
habitat the the retention of that percentage of upland
habitat should be
for the purpose of maintaining the habitat not if a
developer can market it
at an increased price or if a commercial developer doesn't
care about trees.
It sounds like that was a motivating factor historically I
don't think it
should be going forward but again it might be a non-issue
and so it might be
helpful if there's a way to present or if you could tell me
offline how many
commercial properties have upland habitat to know if this
is even an issue.
Well the issue would be it we one thing is develop
commercial okay and other
thing is vacant land that is zoned for zoning district or
category that allows
some sort of commercial district so those are two separate.
I will have to
probably go back and try to overlay the two to give you a
estimate of how much
is that. I will tell you that most of the upland habitat it
will be on the eastern
part if you take I-35W corridor most of the cross timbers
are in the east part
of town when you move across the western part of it the
actually acreage and art
prairies so you don't see a lot of trees in that area for
that reason so and
that's the areas of town that are more ripe for development
at this point
especially industrial and things like that so it will be
zoning districts that
allow some sort of commercial use that we have a whole slew
of those that are
pretty much east of I-35 corridor. And I can look as well
it seems like the
Mayhill reconstruction east of Mayhill is where we've seen
historically there's
the neighborhood behind the Ford dealership that had an up
land habitat in
that neighborhood I just and maybe between meetings I can
look to see what
the upland habitat is over on that side so those are my
thoughts.
Yeah I can probably look into the interactive map and turn
the ESA layer
for you and then see if in that way you have an idea of
where they are. Thank you.
Commissioner Beck. Yeah thank you chair and this is
probably kind of self evident but
when you say that non-residential development when it encro
aches upland
habitat it has to preserve 30%. 50%? Non-residential.
Okay. Yes. It would be great if it was. Okay. So we're
talking about just say you've got a 10
acre track of upland habitat but they're only going to
affect a thousand square
feet so the 30% they're expected is going to be brought
roughly 300 square feet
in or are we taking in to consideration that whole 10 acre
track? No you're
assuming that the entire 10 acres is in their site and that
's something that we
have to clarify. The 10 acres doesn't have to be in one
parcel owned by one
owner. Those are tree stands that might be spread out about
multiple land owners.
Okay let's say that they are 10 acres for owners equally
distributed 2.5 okay
let's say that I'm owner number one I'm going in and I'm
going to do
resident non-residential. So what what are the calculation
is going to be based
on how much of the upland habitat is in my parcel? That
will be 2.5 and then the
2. it will be 30% out of that 2.5 acres. So that's what you
will be required to do.
So hopefully the theory behind it is if everyone develops
at the same
type of development residential and all are subject to 30%
after everybody
preserve their 30% overall we will have three acres of up
land habitat left from
the original 10. So it's only 30% of the trees that you're
directly going to
impact. Correct. Of what is on your property. Right right
thank you.
Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair. I actually wanted to
ask Commissioner
Rozelle a question with regard to what we were just
discussing. What's the
percentage that you have in your mind when you ask the
question that you do? I
mean if we're non-residential I would think you'd be equal.
It's hard for me
to see why a non-invasive neighborhood that's homes that
they're gonna put bird
feeders up and they actually would probably help with the
underlying habitat
more than commercial would have a steeper regulation than
commercial that
might not be as inclined to keep the habitat intact apart
from the canopy.
Because it seems residential has to be contiguous has to be
50% and they're
they have the same encouragement but on the non-residential
it's 30% is that to
be contiguous it just keep the tree canopy and so I'm just
curious about
what are we trying to protect and why the different
standards based on
development if if we're worried about the the birds and the
critters I think
it should be zoned the agnostic in terms of protecting that
that habitat. I guess
I understand then but it's probably because a commercial
development is
gonna have a bigger footprint overall it might impede the
development all
together if you require the same just because residential
and commercial
they're just not the same type of development so. Totally
understand it it
just seems to me that I don't want to use language
inappropriate but it's a
it's a it's a weak protection of the upland habitat if
depending on what the
use is if you want to put an office park in don't worry
about the habitat we don't
we don't care about if you want an office park if you want
houses we do care
about the habitat that's what it's it's communicating to me
and again it might
be inconsequential to the amount of development that overl
aps non-residential
and upland but it doesn't it doesn't seem to be speaking
the same voice from
the city's perspective of what we want to protect if there
's a dual standard
based on use. Commissioner Sullivan. Thank you. What is the
what definition are we
using for residential development in other words is this
more than ten houses
more than 20 houses or a single house? It could be a single
house the use is
residential so it could be single-family it could be multi-
family or it could be
two-f. Those are pretty much. What I'm saying is if an
individual comes in and buys a lot in a
neighborhood that's pretty well built out they're gonna be
treated as a
developer rather than the fact that they bought the lot
they bought the trees
there way too many trees because the lot's not big enough
to hold the house
they want and so they're gonna be held to this 50% cont
iguous as a developer
was which I'm sure was intended to not come in and clear-
cut 20 acres of trees
to put in the houses. I'm curious as to where does the home
owner you know the
landowner rights come into play versus again this are
arbitrary contiguous
50% number. Okay well in this scenario that you that you
are playing you are
it there's an existing neighborhood so we are talking a inf
ield almost an
infield situation okay where they have been one big tract
skipped from
development. The chances are that there's a tree that there
's a large parcel ten
acres or more who is covered you know inch for inch of tree
it is not very
often I will not rule out the possibility but it is very
unlikely. If
you are just building one house for example you can clear
50% of that
habitat by right that should give you enough if you have a
ten acre tract
cover with trees and you are in time. I'm not talking about
ten acre I'm talking about a quarter acre or
half acre. Well I'm talking about it in you know in a
residential area in a
development that's already been developed for several years
but there's
three or four scattered lots and they happen to have a
bunch of trees on it
people like to have a bunch of trees around their house.
Yeah I see that the
possibility however I think that if you are on a quarter
lot and you are entitled
to clear 50% of the upland habitat by right that chances
are that
will be enough for you to be able to accommodate your
building footprint, your
driveway, your sidewalk. You may have some upland habitat
on your backyard that
possibility exists but because the 50% that you have to
clear that should give
you enough area for a house. So basically the city owns 50%
of my lot
when I buy this single quarter acre lot to put in the 3,000
square foot house
and a pool I am I've got to keep 50% contiguous canopy
coverage trees on my
lot even though I want to put in a pool. You're gonna tell
me oh sorry Mr.
Salvin you're you know you've taken down 60% you can't do
that. Yeah well the
city will not own it because that is not the the upland
habitat is not dedicated
to the city or given a fee simple so you still own the up
land habitat is yours.
The option let's say that you would like to clear more than
the 50%.
There's a mechanism that you that you could go and it's
called the alternative
ASA plan. The alternative ASA plan you can look at it
almost like a variance
process. Then look at the facts you know what it is this is
the last remainder
making lot so on and so forth and then you can provide some
mitigation if for
the to it in exchange of the encroachment. So there is a
mechanism
where developers who actually find themselves as or
consider the
preservation of the upland habitat as a hardship they can
pursue that option.
And we will discuss the next item is the is the criteria
for the alternative ASA
plan so we will you will be able to see what we are looking
. I just have a
problem with an individual landowner being treated as a
developer that's
that's my concern. They're all being treated the same and
they're not the same.
Thank you. I think staff want to make a clarification. Just
for clarification
this would not apply to anything under 10 acres right
because it would in order
to you would need to have that 10 contiguous acres for it
to qualify as
cross timbers. The possible scenario is that you have an
existing subdivision
that had that preserved the tempers that had some of the up
land habitat that
preserved the 50% that they were responsible for and then
you have this
additional and let's let's let's say that they end up
having to preserve
9.75 acres. Okay you have this small owner to have one
quarter of an
acre and all together makes the 10 acre tree stand minimum
size. That that would
be the situations. Most of the time that's when I see that
as scenario
playing out. It's just somebody already preserved 9.75
acres of upland
habitat and then this is adjacent to a part of the tree
stand and it still
makes the 10 acre cut out. I see it differently. Kind of
tying into the tree
code since that's not before us but I know it's coming. My
understanding of how
the tree code has been written is once you make the
preservation those trees
whether they're in upland or any other those are
permanently identified that
those have to be preserved. So to Commissioner Sullivan's
point which is
I know he and I have been having sharing some of the same
concerns about this is
once that designation is put there the individual property
owner can't remove
those. Am I correct in my understanding of that? There are
provisions on
on nine oh I'm sorry on 17 for the removal of trees within
upland habitat
for this for this health of the trees okay but beyond any
clearing that is
advisable to preserve the health of the trees and habitat
then yes that would be
they would have to go through some sort of alternative ASA
plan. Correct. Sure.
You wanna call legal for clarification. I just want the
Commission to
understand and and I'm sure you guys are but just for just
reminding the
Commission again is you have the ESSA ordinance and then
you have the
tree code ordinance and so what I think there was reminding
us are these
regulations for ESSAs and I think a lot of the comments
will be addressed today
will be addressed under the tree code revisions but my
question maybe to Deborah
is these requirements mirror those requirements in the tree
code is that
correct? The proposed tree code so what we are we have been
talking about be
consistent making the regulation consistent throughout last
time that I
checked the tree code that was the 30% let's put that
caveat out there and what
we are trying to do is just to be consistent throughout and
to provide
opportunities for developers to meet multiple requirements
at once and not
double tag the developers with multiple preservations of
things so that's what
staff was trying to attain when we crafted the language. So
just one more
time that these revisions would make the ESSA ordinance
consistent with a tree
ordinance. Correct. I'm gonna backtrack because we're
getting kind of down in the
weeds and I want to come back to the substantive changes
that we're making
and I just want to make sure I'm correct on what we
currently have and what we're
proposing to do. Currently my understanding on residential
development
and upland habitat if you have the 10 acre site you have to
preserve 50% of it
but you also then have the option if you need to to make
your project work design
whatever that is you have the opportunity to mitigate up to
50% or
half of that five acres is that correct you end up
preserving 25% and
mitigating paying into the tree fund or planting trees that
25% you need to
remove yeah you are talking about the tree code you are
preserving the
individual trees okay now the habitat now the understory
okay so if you were
to have 10 acres on the upland habitat okay let's play this
now that is not
upland okay you can go in you preserve your percentage your
minimum percentage
and you can go in and you can clear the understory okay
because the tree code
what is the preservation of it is the tree canopy okay let
's add a wrinkle to
it and let's call that 10 acres in upland habitat okay the
50% preservation
is not only the trees the canopy itself but also the under
story that comes with
it that's the major difference between tree code and upland
habitat and the
other thing is a tree code allows you to further reduce
your percentage by
paying into the tree fund the ESA the only mechanism that
will allow you to
reduce your preservation would be going through an
alternative ESA plan okay so
back to my my question and forgive me whether I'm back and
forth between the
tree code or the upland habitat if you've got upland
habitat 10 acres on
your parcel contiguous currently you can take up to half of
it out in a
residential use and then if you need to take out more than
that you can take
another half of that but you have to mitigate it and then
if I can finish my
point under this you can just go to the 50% now you can't
mitigate the other
portion if you needed to I think the current language doesn
't tell you that
you cannot reduce below the 50% it tells you that you will
have to do that
through a alternative ESA mechanism let's say that you have
you preserve your
50 but you want to actually reduce it to 10% get rid of the
40% that you are
required to do if you go through there through the
alternative ESA plan and
then you get a final approval from City Council you are
entitled to clear that
40% because you have vetted that request through planning
and sorting Commission
and City Council so there's no cap on on how much encro
achment you can have as
long as if you go below the 50% you do it through an
alternative ESA plan
currently or with this correct you can do it currently or
with this mechanism
correct so we are not changing we are not changing that the
only thing that
we are changing is we are adding non-residential
development be subject
to preservation of Oakland habitat that's the only process
that we are
changing okay well I'm gonna call on Commissioner Sullivan
and he's being
patient I have this similar concern with the direction that
this is going the
same concern that we've talked about with the tree cone the
concern I have is
we all throw the term developer out but that's that guy
over here that's going
to take care of that and really it's the individual
property owners that own
these properties that are the ones that bear the burden of
these code changes
that we make and we are making city policy for the good of
the public and
private individuals are bearing the burden of the cost of
these and that's
just the fact of the way that works and so people can say
it's a developer
that's not how that really works the developer says it's
got 10 acres of
upland habitat on it that they can't do anything with or I
can only use half not
going to offer to pay for that portion your property is now
worth X because
that property is not usable it's for the good of the public
the person that owns
that property that has a designation on there suffers a
financial loss because
it has a designation that's put on their property for the
good of the public that
they're going to bear privately and I have a concern about
that I don't think
it's fair to people to ask them for the good of the public
and the community and
all of these things and the benefits and the reasons why we
're preserving them
for individual people to bear those burdens and cost I don
't know what the
right mechanism is to preserve these things and to be fair
to private property
owners and the city of Denton benefits I don't know how to
solve that problem I
get to serve for a few hours every two weeks and a few
hours before to try to
read and prepare all you know for a meeting and have a
hopefully a logical
discussion and bring up some points and then look to city
staff with the 13
months of however long y'all have worked on it to go
through all of those
discussions to say how do we equitably solve this problem
and to go a step
further there's no consideration to what the values are so
if you have a
commercial corner maybe it's worth $30 a square foot I don
't know a million to
maybe there's 10 acres it's on a corner just like this that
's the same value
there's no consideration to how much money does our city
lose in potential
property taxes and all the revenues that come off of that
site versus if it's in
the very back corner and it's worth a dollar a square foot
there's no
mechanism for there to be flexibility to say well we have a
track right here in
our city that our city could have a million dollars in
property taxes off of
but the one back here in the back that we get twenty twenty
thousand dollars
off of there's no consideration of what does this really
cost us how do we
figure out well gosh the property owners should be able to
be able to make a
decision and say I want to pay into the tree fund or I want
to go buy a site and
give you a we don't call it a tree bank or an upland cavity
habitat bank and I
can buy that piece of property for a much different price
and preserve that
and here's a prime piece of property those are the concerns
that I have when
we bring these things up we don't spend any time on this
commission talking
about those we talk about go through this right quick and
put it into place
and there's not a conversation of what does this really
mean when we put this
in place how does it affect our city how does it affect
individual property
owners and those are the concerns that I have that I'd like
to have some further
discussion about how we address those things and what's
what's reasonable and
fair to individual property owners and what's in the best
interest of the city
and how do those two things equitably get put into place
commissioner Sullivan
and then I'll tell you commissioner Sanchez this is if I
understand this
this is for 10 acres or more is that the intent of this how
many how many
parcels of land within the city of Denton are undeveloped
that comprise 10
acres or more
and so are we making much to do about nothing I mean is
that if we're talking
about you know 10 acres you know is the the big you know
the cutoff point you
know anything over 10 acres or more I believe you just
nailed it I think
we're beating a horse here that doesn't need to be beat
because there's not a
lot left in the city now when you get to the tree code that
's a different issue
okay because the tree code is going to be concerned with
individual trees we're
talking about contiguous stand of trees 10 acres that are
together there's very
few left on there and there is a mechanism it's called an
alternative
visa you can put in it for an alternative environmental and
it'll go
through the process just like through a zoning change
whereas if you want to go
in there develop it we had a project that came in today it
had every ESA that
the city has it on the piece property we did not tell that
developer he couldn't
do it he's just got extra hurdles he's got a run through to
make his project
happen this is not going to stop a developer okay it may
cause him part to
pause for a little bit and rethink his plan but it's not
going to stop him I'd
like to stop right there and if you let me just kind of
thought those parcels
of land how is all this going to be conveyed to them as to
what they're now
what the property has been designated how it's going to
affect them what's
going to happen who's going to talk to these people about
that or is all you're
just gonna kind of get it done and sneak away in the middle
of the night the
designation of upland habitat we are not changing okay
whatever is showing on the
map as upland habitat have been shown on the map since 2002
when the ESA map was
created so this is not a new information why would it be
new information if this
changes were to be approved okay it is that if they were
marketing their site
for commercial development they may have that and I may
have a potential solution
for the mechanism that we can discuss when we talk about
the alternative ESA
plan let me allow me to entertain that that idea so right
now we are not putting
or designated new areas of upland habitat we are not what
we are doing is
that if those areas were to be developed for non-resident
ial purposes then they
will be subject to 30% preservation of but the designation
we are not
designated new upland habitats on people's property is not
the other issue
that is another wrinkle to it is the tempers the 10 acre
tree stand could be
spread among multiple parcels okay so for for us to do an
analysis to say
which parcels include at least 10 acres of open habitat on
it we will be further
reducing that because that's not very common chances are
those are tree stand
that they don't they don't stop a property property lines
they they can
they continue and spread out among so the analysis is a
little bit challenging
in that regard because we are not talking about three ten
acres on one
single parcel because then we will be further reducing the
amount of areas
that have good habitat good upland habitat that should be
preserved just
because we are limited to one ownership 10 acres come back
I know there's a
number of parcels that have more than that I've looked at
them familiar with
it and I guess the other point I want to bring up and kind
of respond to Bob is
that what you what you do when you do an alternative visa
plan it becomes a
political issue then it comes before this Commission it
becomes before City
Council and I've sat on this Council or Commission before
and those things are
voted down we're not going to allow an alternative visa for
this particular
site in a discussion so there's all kinds of great ways to
talk about will
you have a process well if it works that's great but I've
seen on countless
occasions where it comes before us and so we want to do an
alternative no we're
not gonna allow you to go do that that property there's not
a mechanism there
that mechanism although it sounds like it's an option may
not work and it
doesn't provide any relief and that's the concern I have
when we talk about
changing these things and say well you can go through that
process well when it
comes back no well okay you're gonna preserve 30% or 50%
into question we're
not going to approve that so those are the concerns that I
have in in moving
these forward I want you to get through your presentation
we're out of time and
one of the other things that I have a concern and what's
going to get to the
very end is the application when you go back at 35-17-2 it
says within the
corporate limits of the city but then further on when you
read through this
it says the official maps and 35-17-6 it says the official
map that identifies
areas designated as ESA I don't know where that map is but
when it me for my
purview and preparing for the meeting I just went to the
city website pull up
the interactive map and turn on ESA's and not only is it in
the city a limit
city limits of Denton it's all out in the ETJ so my
question is when we do
this and it says see limits limits but then it's on the map
does this also
apply out in the ETJ also because it shows on our map the
only ESA that we
have jurisdiction outside the ETJ and that is granted by
the ETJ or city
limits outside the city limits in the ETJ okay so in the ET
J okay so the only type
of ESA that the city have jurisdiction for the protection
and that protection
is granted to the city by the Texas Local Government Code
is for floodplain
ESAS the riparian buffer the water related and the upland
habitat outside
the city limits we don't have a make it out if they were to
be encroached clear
we cannot protect those the only ESA that we have some say
to it is for
floodplain and the reason why is a protect as a protection
of water
resources and that is granted by the state of Texas to the
cities so to
answer the question I assess for clarification not only
does this apply in
the city limits of Denton it also is going to apply in the
ETJ for those
particular items correct and that is outlined in I'm sorry
17.2 B floodplain
standard of this sub chapter shall apply to all land and
all development with the
extra territorial jurisdiction of the city that's the only
one that we would
have a say I'll have some more questions about that I know
we're out of time and
everybody probably wants to get a quick bite I'm gonna call
a recess at 620 and
let's get something to eat and then we'll start again at 6
30 in council
chambers and I guess we'll have to continue this at our
next meeting
are we voting on this tonight supposed to be it's on our
agenda as a vote for
City Council as is okay so based
on the
good evening and welcome to the city of Denton planning and
zoning Commission
meeting for February 7th 2018 this meeting has been duly
posted and we do
have a quorum present and I will call us to order at 643 I
'm sorry we ran a
little long and work session our first order of business
will be to stand and
give the pledge the US and the Texas flags
Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under
God one
our next item on our agenda will be to consider approval of
our minutes
Commissioner Roselle I move to approve the minutes from
January 24th okay
thank you chair I second we have a first and a second for
approval any further
discussion seeing none call for a vote on the board
motion carries six to zero will take us to our consent
agenda
Commissioner Beck I move we approve consent agenda okay
Commissioner Rizel second okay we have a first and a second
for approval any
further discussion seeing none will call for a vote on the
board and we'll move
us to our public hearing section this evening our first
item will be item a
and I will open the public hearing to Z 17 - 0 0 2 7 a and
I will call on
Shandrin for presentation good evening commissioners Shand
rin Jarvis with
development services the next item is Z 1727 is a rezoning
request for property
located along University Boulevard the request is to resign
approximately two
acres from a neighborhood residential mixed use 12 district
to a community
mixed use general district the property is located here
along West University
razor elementary is here on this tract and then just to
give you some
reference Malone Street is here and then Fulton Street is
here the property is
currently undeveloped and it's not platted again when we
look at rezoning
requests we typically consider two criteria does it meet
the future land
use plan and does it facilitate the provision of public
infrastructure when
we looked at the future land use plan we noticed that this
request does is
consistent with the future land use plan for this area it's
designated for
commercial use which is intended to promote regional
community and neighbor
neighborhood shopping centers CMG which is what the
applicant is requesting
would be a logical extension of the existing CMG districts
that are located
along the north side of University and also to the east of
the property and it
would promote a cohesive development pattern and then just
to take another
look at the existing zoning districts again you see the CMG
along the north
side of University on the south there's some inner in our
three neighborhood
residential three on the south this area and I intended to
update the map this is
primarily flat plane and so it's not really developable
with developable at
this point there's some NRMU 12 here on the east and this
is mostly developed
with offices so basically the area the this area is
primarily commercial in in
use and the applicant is actually requesting this zoning
change in order
to facilitate retail and restaurant development on the site
when we look at
the available public infrastructure there's water and
wastewater utility in
the right away of West University and obviously if when
this does develop the
property would need to do some extensions into the site but
that is
available as far as access West University is currently a
six lane
divided in the mobility plan calls for a six lane divided
with bike lanes and
sidewalks so any dedication or perimeter street
improvements would be collected
at the subdivision stage as I mentioned there's floodplain
easter on the
southwest corner of the site but there's no existing tree
canopy
according in accordance with the local government code we
issued 11 letters to
property owners within 200 feet of the subject property we
received one and we
actually issued 26 courtesy notices to properties within
500 feet and we
received one response in favor of the of the request which
that fell in the 500
foot buffer the applicant didn't did not hold the
neighborhood meeting but they
did contact the area HOA's who had no objections to the
request so in summary
CMG we filled CMG is consistent with the goals and
objectives of the den 20 2030
plan it's compatible with the surrounding property in terms
of
permitted density in the uses that would be allowed and
therefore we recommend
approval so that concludes my presentation and I will stand
for
questions
I don't see any questions thank you okay this is a public
hearing anyone who would
like to speak on this item please come forward at this time
I do not have any
cards wishing to speak but again this is a public hearing
anyone who would like
to speak on this item please come forward seeing none will
close the
public hearing and open the floor for discussion or emotion
Commissioner Ellis
thank you chair I move approval of a z 1727 a Commissioner
Sanchez okay I have
a first and a second for approval any further discussion
seeing none I'll call
for a vote on the board
that motion will carry six to zero we'll move us to our
next item on our agenda
I'm going to open the public hearing for z 17 - 0 0 0 3 a
we'll call on Haley for
presentation
good evening and as we did at work session I'll do one
presentation for
both the rezoning and the SUP request but it would require
two separate motions
and votes all right so this is case z 17 3 and s 17 11 for
the Coventry two
apartments as I mentioned there are two separate requests
the first being a
rezoning from community mixed-use general to neighborhood
residential
mixed-use district and the second aspect of the request if
the rezoning is
approved would be for a specific use permit to allow for
multifamily
residential use on the property you can see two boundaries
outlined here on the
map the red boundary is the boundary of the rezoning so it
's 11.42 acres and
then the yellow boundary within that is the 10.68 acres for
the SUP requests
which excludes an existing office building on the south
side of the
property and for reference we have I 35 to the north of the
property Sam bass
forms the western boundary and Londonderry Lane is on the
south side to
look at the rezoning request first we have the existing
zoning map on the left
you see it's the whole area is primarily zone CMG and then
on the right would be
the proposed zoning map if this request for NRM you is
approved there are two
criteria for approval isn't of an SUP as Shandrian
mentioned the first being
conformance with the future land use plan and the second
being the
facilitation of public infrastructure looking at the first
of those two
components the future land use for this area is community
mixed-use which is
intended to promote a mixture of commercial residential and
service uses
NRM you we found to be generally consistent with this it's
very
comparable to CMG in terms of the scale of development as
well as the type of
development there it allows for a wide mixture of
residential and commercial
uses looking at the existing public infrastructure there
there are existing
water and sewer lines in the area that would be available
for the development
with possibly some internal extensions required Sam bass
and Londonderry are
both currently two lane undivided roads they are commercial
mixed-use collectors
which means that they're intended to stay two lane undivid
ed but with the
availability for parking and sidewalks on the side of the
roads and any
dedications or improvements for this development would be
done either at the
time that they replat that if they replat the property or
when they get to
site plan looking at some other compatibility factors here
as I
mentioned we did find NRM you to be consistent with the
existing zoning in
many ways a lot coverage building height landscaping
requirements are all the
same between these two districts and I also wanted to point
out that the
proposed use for multifamily is permitted under the current
zoning the
intent of the request is to get rid of a limitation that
exists within CMG that
requires ground floor commercial development ground floor
commercial
would probably be tricky in this location given how far it
is off the
freeway and the existing development pattern because we
have multifamily on
almost all sides and then industrial with the Acme brick
plant on the
opposite side of Sam Bass with that staff is recommending
approval of the
rezoning request because of this consistency with the goals
and
objectives of the Denton plan 2030 the second aspect of the
request then
pending approval of the rezoning would be for the specific
use permit for the
multifamily use when we look at an SUP request we look for
general
compatibility between the use that's proposed and the
surrounding property in
terms of no impediments to development of other properties
in the area and
nuisance generation potential and things of that nature so
this is the concept
plan that's been proposed for this development this would
be the second
phase of an existing apartment complex it's to the east of
the property for
reference on this map it would be here on the the top side
so you can see this
existing driveway would allow connectivity between the two
phases of
the apartment complex this plan shows 283 units a mixture
of one two and three
bedrooms that puts it at around 26 dwelling units per acre
for density
which is well below that maximum of 30 that they would have
under NRM you if
the rezoning is approved you can see six buildings laid out
here mixture of three
and four stories in height one of the key features of the
site being that each
one of these buildings is designed in an L shape with a
common area with
landscaping and a kind of a courtyard effect for each
building so they do have
about 38% landscaping overall as it's proposed we found
this request to be
consistent with the Denton plan 2030 both for that future
land use designation
and for the fact that our our comprehensive plan calls for
higher
density housing to be provided in areas that don't impact
existing single-family
neighborhoods and as we saw with this one that it's
surrounded by like uses
there wouldn't be any direct connectivity with single-
family so it
would limit any impacts that could occur there the use is
consistent with the
existing development pattern in the area and the site would
be required to comply
with all other components of the DDC in terms of tree
preservation landscaping
parking site lighting and those types of things and it
would be generally
unlikely to generate any nuisances because of its
consistency with the
surrounding development pattern notices were sent for this
request for the local
government code we received one response in favor from the
former property owner
for the southern portion of the tract and the applicant did
hold a
neighborhood meeting this past Monday and they had
representatives from two
nearby complexes that attended to see what the proposal was
staff is
recommending approval of the SUP with the condition that
the site plan we saw
tonight be considered conceptual in nature so they would
still go through
the full site plan submittal where all of the specifics of
the site would be
be nailed down to ensure compliance with the net and
development code and with
that I can stand for any questions any questions for having
there you go
Commissioner back thank you just as the owner here the
applicant here and gonna
speak to us tonight yes the applicant is here thank you
have any other questions thank you having this is a public
hearing so anyone
who would like to speak on this item please come forward at
this time I do
not have any cards currently so believe it was stay the
applicants here if the
applicants here would you like to speak on this item
I'm Josh I'm with Western Securities we've been here in
Denton for since 2001
we actually did a project called Coventry we love that
project we really
want to improve Denton as well it's we feel like this
projects is going to
improve the neighborhood around the existing project and we
feel like this
is a catalyst for us to be able to help develop the entire
area as well do you
have one question for you Commissioner Beck hey you chair
Josh thanks for coming
down and speaking and I like what I'm seeing pretty much
too I'm one of those
though that always hates to see trees go and I noticed in
your conceptual plan
you've got some big courtyards there so I'm just kind of
hoping that when you
come back with a site plans final that we'll see a lot a
lot of areas there
that you can salvage a lot of those trees I went over and
looked at them today
most of them are post oak they're native trees so what's
your sentiment on that
if you don't mind asking this this is not our first entry
into a large tree
saving community we actually believe in saving as many
trees as possible I want
to try and create a feeling of being in a park and not
having where you can see
from one unit to another across the street I want to
actually create that
that feeling of seeing life so that's something that I
really try and strive
to protect ultimately that's not really viable in every
situation but I want to
try and do as best I can for that yes good luck to you on
that thank you I
don't see any other questions thank you sir appreciate you
again this is a public
hearing anyone who would like to speak on this item please
come forward at this
time seeing none I'll close the public hearing and open the
floor for discussion
or emotion
Commissioner Roselle I motion to approve the zoning agenda
item Z 17 - 0 0 3 a
Commissioner Beck second okay the first and the second for
approval any other
discussion seeing none I'll call for a vote on the board
motions going to carry six to zero that item passes and we
have a Richard at
staff would like to make an announcement on C before I open
it and make some
clarifications if there is a recommendation to approve this
item based
on the condition I just wanted to add a sentence at the end
just so there's it's
clear moving forward and that would be but shall be in
conformance with the
concept plan as presented I think there was a there's a
discussion last night at
City Council as as to whether or not they're required to
comply with with the
concept plan that was always our intent but we just wanted
to get it on the
record so so it's clear that's all thank you for that
clarification condition if
we get to that point and with that I'm going to open the
public hearing for s
17 - 0 0 11 a we'll call on Haley for if we do a
presentation or if we just take
a vote on the SUP portion if there's anything you'd like me
to run back
through on the presentation I can okay all right well thank
you for that and I
will ask if there's any additional comments this is a
public hearing I
don't have any cards on this item so if there's anyone who
would like to speak
or if the applicant would like to address the additional
clarification on
the condition if there's any questions about that we happy
to entertain that
with you no okay with that I'm gonna close the public
hearing and I will open
the floor for discussion or motion
Commissioner Ellis thank you chair I move approval of s 17
11 a with staff's
condition as stated so the condition we have in our agenda
along with the
clarification by Richard okay great Commissioner Sullivan
okay we have a
first and a second for approval any further discussion
seeing now call for a
vote on board
motions going to carry six to zero that will move us to our
item D and I'm
going to open the public hearing for z 18 - 0 0 0 1 and
this is the item that we
will need a motion to continue and leave open
Commissioner Roselle I motion to move agenda z 1 8 - 0 0 0
1 postponed to a
date certain of February 21st 2018 okay Commissioner Ellis
thank you chair
second we have a first and a second on this item and we are
going to leave it
open and I will call for a vote on board
this motion is going to carry six to zero move us to item E
we'll open the
public hearing for DCA 18 - 0 0 0 1 we'll call on Haley for
this presentation
good evening this is case DCA 18 1 it's a proposed code
update so the request
before you is to hold a public hearing and consider making
a recommendation
to the City Council regarding a proposed revision to the
Denton development code
specifically to amend the limitations in subchapter 5 as it
relates to mixed use
development requirements for multifamily uses to give you a
little
background there are two limitations in the development
code today that would
apply to multifamily uses within our mixed use districts
the first of those
is limitation 4 which allows multifamily with either a
specific use permit as
part of a mixed use development or if it meets one of the
other three criteria
being part of a master plan development or previously
approved as part of a
small area plan the second limitation that applies along
with L4 and several
districts is limitation 6 that permits multifamily uses
only on the second
story and above when office retail or other permitted
commercial uses are
provided on the ground floor along any Avenue collector or
arterial street if
you have looked at our mobility plan those are our primary
street types other
than you know residential streets within subdivisions so
this would apply in many
locations so looking at how these two often apply together
you'd see here that
L4 applies in all of the mixed use districts so anywhere
multifamily is
permitted outside of the downtown districts L4 applies
limitation 6 is
added in four of the districts the community mixed use
districts and then
our regional center neighborhood and downtown districts as
well what staff is
proposing is to remove L6 from all four of those districts
we're not proposing
any changes to L4 it would remain in place L6 we would like
to strike from
all four districts where it currently applies in the past
two years in 2016 and
2017 we had five rezoning request as a result of this
limitation we saw one of
them here tonight but there have been countless other
projects that haven't
moved forward because of the requirement for ground floor
commercial just to look
at how this applies across the city it applies in our
community mixed use in our
regional center districts on the map here that would be the
purple colors the
kind of fuchsia colors and then the areas of light pink so
you can see here
out on the freeway and the loop we have a large area of
this we have CMG along
McKinney and University and then other pockets of the
regional district here on
the north side of the city primarily along the loop in the
interstate our
comprehensive plans and notes that we have a strong need
for a diversity of
housing types in Denton multifamily being a key one of
those especially with
our universities here and requiring ground floor commercial
that would work
best in walkable compact environments and areas out on the
loop or on the
freeway is a bit onerous and not always feasible for these
developments so
looking at how these apply I mentioned in the downtown
multifamilies permitted by
right but we do often see the type of development that L6
is trying to
achieve ground floor commercial as a market decision works
well in the
downtown where you have that compact urban environment so
you see a couple of
examples here on the right of how we have that development
in downtown today
on the bottom of the screen just to give you an example or
a couple of sites one
zone CMG that's on the loop and another one's own RC CD out
on Brinker where
the ground floor commercial would be required you can tell
these are
primarily auto oriented areas where people are not likely
to be walking along
the sidewalk going shopping at their neighborhood stores
further wanted to
point out as I mentioned earlier that L4 would still apply
in all of these
districts in any of our mixed-use districts there would
still either be
the requirement for multifamily to be part of mixed use so
to be part of a
larger development with three or more uses of which multif
amily can only be
one so commercial would be a requirement there or it would
be required to have an
SUP is like the case we saw before this so there would
still be that high level
of scrutiny on multifamily development in most of the city
we did publish
notification in the newspaper for this request and received
no responses and
staff is recommending approval and with that I can stand
for any questions any
questions for having I'll make a comment I'm glad to see
this come before us
because to your point we've had a lot of instances over the
only the last year
but prior to this on this item and I think it's a good
change and I'm glad to
see us clean this up and make life easier for everybody on
this particular
item so thank you for bringing this to us
no more questions thank you Haley this is a public hearing
so anyone who would
like to speak on this item please come forward at this time
I do not have any
carts here before me to call on someone so again this is a
public hearing
seeing none I'll close the public hearing and open the
floor for discussion
or emotion Commissioner Ellis thank you chair I will
happily move approval of DCA
18 1 Commissioner back I agree this is a good move I second
the motion we have a
first and a second for approval any further discussion
seeing none we'll call
for a vet on the board
motions going to carry six to zero that will take us to
item F at this time I'm
going to open the public hearing for DCA 17 - 0 0 1 1 and
we'll call on Deborah
here for presentation
good evening Commission my name is Deborah beer and with
the environmental
services tonight we are bringing forward as a public
hearing the proposed
revisions to sub chapter 17 and for the past two pence
meetings we have been
having a discussion in details about what they are my
presentation tonight is
going to be you know that the general concepts behind and
then we will zoom
in into the proposed changes to the alternative ESA plan
approval criteria
if that's okay with the Commission sure just a question are
we going to do like
a page turn of the actual ordinance is that part of your
presentation no no
well what I was planning and just to go over the why the
changes are needed and
so forth then highlights the substantial changes and naming
one by one and then
discuss in detail the last one perfect okay sure thank you
so if you excuse me sometimes I would kind of skip between
slides but
hopefully you can bear with me currently the development
code provides protection
for four type of environmental sensitivities area those are
flood
plains which are further classifying to develop and unde
veloped riparian buffers
a water-related habitats and upland habitats the first
three type of ESAs
they tend to co-locate or be nested inside each other
because the three are
dependent on the presence for some period of time of water
upland habitat
those are more dry land driven habitat so why do we protect
the ESAs first it
really helps the city to actually meet the where MS4 permit
MS4 stands for
municipal separate storm sewer system that deals with the
management of runoff
and some water into the city having those areas that
actually protects the
the water bodies that filter all that pollution it is
actually part of our MS
MS4 permit with TCEQ that also allow us to meet our
construction general permit
with TCEQ when you have ESAs in your construction site and
you preserve
those you can actually use them as a best management
practices the protection
of ESAs especially the floodplain ESAs actually give us
some points in the
national floodplain insurance program those are program
that based on how well
the city managed the floodplain we can provide discounts
towards the floodplain
insurance owner so the better we do managing our floodplain
the better
insurance rate they can get so it is something that
everybody benefits and
the protection of ESAs is important for obtaining the sewer
level ice wind city
designation that we obtained in 2016 why are we proposing
the revisions to sub
chapter 17 first of all when the development code was
written originally
in 2002 many of the sub chapters had some sort of overlap
and or hinges on
the environmental sensitive area many of those chapters
have been already revised
however the correspond the citations and references were
not carried through so
right now we have some inconsistencies between sub chapter
17 and other sections
of the development code the development community have
indicated to us that the
code could benefit from improving the wording and phrasing
so in that way is
more understandable understandable is lacking clarity in
some instances with
that with the implementation of with the approval of the D
DC back in 2002 the ESA
were the first attempt policy wise to the protection of
those areas many of
those policies that were written at the time were not given
clear
implementation of it so one one example is the clustering
development it is
permitted but there's so much guidance on how to go by it
have been over 15 16
years since the adoption of the DDC it's time for all for
us to revaluate those
policies are they are they making sense do we need to
change them or do we need
to keep them and definitely we need to start considering
new policies if
necessary so it have been you know we have a fair try and
if they are not
working or their new things why not to consider those so
this process of
writing changes was better through the committee on the
environment which is a
subcommittee from the City Council we spent approximately
13 months with the
committee going step-by-step changes changes changes we
organize all the
co-revisions in four different categories corrections those
were typos
grammatical errors or simple references that were outdated
the second was
language clarification and the third was language addition
the difference between
the two is language clarification is the policies there we
are not making changes
to the policy whatsoever we are adding to what is out there
to make it more
clear code language additions we are not changing policy
either but the initial
wording have no go-by whatsoever so we are adding new
language however the
policy is intact and voices changes during this time we
have vetted these
changes through different platform medias we have sent
emails to the
development code through the web page we I did
presentations when Clarion was
doing the open house meetings about the rewrite of the DDC
I partnered with
them so in that way everybody had the opportunity to to see
the two going
together we also sent a email through the project doc so
anybody who has been an
applicant through the development process should have gone
an email about
the changes and inviting them to provide comments and we I
have solicited input
from local and out-of-town developers consultants and so
forth at this point we
have got up I believe 61 comments total from the different
different people so
and this public hearing was also advertised through the
newspaper so what
what I have done is highlight what are the most substantial
changes and I'm
going quickly through them so stop me if you need to go
over those we are
proposing to create a new ESA criteria manual the ESA
criteria manual is a
hopefully will provide guidance to the homeowner who
happens to have an ESA on
site but doesn't know how to manage them and also it will
provide some technical
guidance for the scientists and the biologists and the one
put in a
restoration program for ESA so we are trying to see to to
try to provide some
some guidance those are common questions that we have come
across over and over
you know we have the homeowner that doesn't have not not
much or really
interested in doing the right thing and we have the more
technical people we
have increased and expanded the credits given by
preservation of ESAs currently
the code talks about giving you credits for the landscape
and tree ordinance
however we have expanded those credits to also give you
credit for the
preservation of trees we have increased the ratio on those
and also because we
acknowledge that Denton is within two ecoregions one on the
eastern side is
where you see the crust timbers on the western side is the
prairie which are
dominated for more herbaceous plant we also want to
acknowledge that and give
them credit if you are preserving those habitats as well
establish an appeal
process for the ESA staff determination in the past 15
years we have not have a
process for which a applicant can challenge the staff
determination about
the presence or absence of ESA these process these new
mechanism would allow
that the designation and depiction of developed and unde
veloped floodplain
habitats and this is one of the major concern when the ESA
map map was created
back I would say in 2000 the designation the floodplain
were designated and when
we go back and see those especially in the western part of
town you see a lot
of switch between developed undeveloped and there's no
inconsistency throughout
and when you see that from an aerial standpoint the
developed designation
doesn't correspond to what is in the ground so we are
proposing to maintain
the designation what we are doing is changing the map are
calling it
everything floodplain ESA when the development is ready to
happen we have a
development proposal in our hands a staff will go out and
make the
determination of what is currently out there the applicant
will always have the
options to hire the own consultant to do it that is up to
them however what we
are trying to do is just to be consistent throughout the
exception of
roadways identified in the city thoroughfare plan from the
limits of
unfilled and vegetation disturbance something that comes to
to your mind
probably is the Ryan Meadows development where they were
required to extend
Creekdale through the floodplain on the southern part of
the development
unfortunately they we didn't have a provision to allow that
to happen
without them going through an alternative ESA plan this
Commission
have spoken and have shown interest in for that to be
changed and we have
incorporated what we have done is we have floodplain and
repair and buffers
most of the time the repair and buffer are nested inside
the floodplain so we
have make sure that is considered that that allowance is
not only consistent
through the floodplain but also within the repair and
buffer and water related
so that there should be a smooth pathway mitigation will be
required they will
have to restore that area that have been the vegetation
have been removed and
make sure that the slopes are consistent and they're not
will not end up or
resulting in erosion so but that mitigation will be
approved at staff
level so that will expedite it would make the process run
smoothly and faster
for the applicant the non-residential development to
preserve 30% of
cross timber upland habitat this is a change this is a
major change in policy
currently the DDC requires the preservation of 50% of the
upland
habitat for residential uses that includes multi-family
single-family and
do bless it however if you were to develop any non-resident
ial use you don't
have to preserve the upland habitat upland habitat
preservation is a little
bit different from tree code preservation mainly because
what we're
looking is the preservation of the of the habitat as a
entire as a unit we are
interested in in the trees but we're also interested in the
understory and
everything that goes with it why because for preserving
that if you remove the
understory from a habitat the chances are that the vi
ability of the habitat to to
last longer the benches so that's the reason why we while
we are moving and
again you have species that they don't climb up to the to
the to the tree
canopy they live on the bottom of that area so we are
providing how the
protection of the habitat as a whole and finally we are
providing a criteria for
approving an alternative ASAP and this is where I want to
delve into more
detail if you allow me back in when the DDC was first
drafted the alternative ESA
plan were envisioned to run parallel on the same process as
an alternative
development plan nowadays the development the alternative
development
plan comes to the planning and zoning Commission and gets
the final approval
before that and I will say approximately eight years ago AD
Ps required the
approval of a planning and zoning Commission and the
approval of City
Council very similar to a zoning change request that have
changed and the city
decide to keep to change the process for alternative ESA
plan but to maintain
the process for the alternative ESA plan meaning that
alternative ESA plan have
to go through the planning and zoning Commission get a
recommendation and then
move forward for final approval through the City Council
however when you
separated the two there was no criteria for alternative ESA
plan so at this point
even though a staff provide some guidance to applicant and
to this body
and City Council on the merits of the alternative ESA plan
we want to
officialize to formalize that process in that way you have
a clear guidance to
judge a proposal by so this is a complete new new change so
this is the
approval process the alternative ESA plan provides an
option to address the
regulations were in a flexible discretionary process
utilizing the
zoning amendment procedure outlines of chapter 3.4 that
language have no
change is the same that we currently have what is different
is the criteria
for approval you have heard me multiple times when I come
and present before you
about how staff the preferences for staff on mitigation I
have always tell
you that you work with what you have if you have a repair
and buffer that you
going to partially encroach on but you have more of that
habitat go and take a
look and see if you can make that habitat better it might
be chances are
that they will be so invasive species that could be removed
that you can plant
more native on it maybe that channel is already eroding if
you stabilize the
channel you are you are improving the chat the the habitat
as a whole so my
own what my first approach is work what you have and that's
number two
mitigation goals are obtained by preserving environmental
sensitive area
above the minimum requirement exchanges between different
type of ESO installing
pollution prevention controls and implementing best
management practices
or any other approaches that result in the improvement of
the environment being
impacted so before this I don't know if you remember Magn
olia an apartment
complex on Nottingham and mingle they exchange they
impacted a repair and
buffer in exchange they mitigated with preserving more open
habitat that one
they needed even though we are not talking apples to apples
we try to what
I call to find a common currency between the two type of
habitat in that case we
use the amount of trees preserve how many trees were
removed by encroaching
into the repair and buffer how much additional trees you
are preserving so
as long as we have some nexus between the two I think that
that's a viable
option sometimes you don't have that the only ESA that you
have on site is the
one that you are encroaching so in those instances because
all those eases they
provide a pollution control mechanism sometimes those
pollution benefits could
be obtained by the implementation of best management
practices or some water
controls so those are the we wanted to provide as much
possibility as we could
for applicants to provide mitigation and the last areas
offer as a mitigation are
linked to existing or plan open space of conserved area to
provide an overall
open space that language is already in the code it is under
section 17.10 so
what we have done many any many of that language that was
in that section have
been moved into this new section and made a criteria for
approving an
alternative ESA plan so that language is it we're just
changing the position
where it is in the code development is arranged for maxim
izing access and
utilization of the environments sensitive area by citizen
that code that
language is already in our code areas offers a mitigation
or place either on a
lot lots that incorporate permanent conservation in that
language is already
in the code we're just using it as a criteria for approval
and the
alternative ESA plan shall demonstrate that the developers
alternative proposal
results in a high quality development meeting the intent of
the standard of
the development code that is the only language that you
currently have for the
approval of alternative ESA plan so as you say it was a
combination of options
that we are wanting to provide the developers when they're
contemplating
applying for a alternative ESA plus you just using current
language that is
already in the code I just use it as a criteria so with
that said we are in the
process of making of actually creating the a criteria
mental for ESA is not
finished yet many of the comments that we have received
from the development
community could go into that or could guide the cut that to
to finalize the
content of the criteria manual so at this point the staff
you have received
copy of the compilation of the of the public input received
I'm very happy
with the with the active participation of the public there
's good good comments
that I would like to incorporate some of them could go
straight to the criteria
manual one comment that struck me and I wish I would have
thought about it when
when I was drafting the comment was to actually the
definition of a water
related habitat I think that the water related habitat
definition is not clear
enough and this new definition I think will help the the
applicants and
professionals when assessing those if you were interested
that would be if you
bear with me common number 28 on the list so it's pretty
much saying that we
need to include clearly stated that bottomland hardwoods
should be are
considered water related and I think that that addition it
really clarifies
for everybody this is not something new we are not
expanding this is currently
when somebody does a is a field assessment or when staff
perform those
assessment bottomlands that meet that criteria would also
be considered so
this is just putting it right in something that we are
currently doing
with that that concludes my presentation I'm available to
answer any questions
that you might have Commissioner bed thank you chair
Deborah can you go back
one slide with the writing in red just once like now okay
number five it says
there is offered as a mitigation or placed either in a lot
or lots that
incorporate a permanent conservation easement restricted co
venants so on so
is this suggesting that if we can't preserve enough trees
in the developed
area that we can find another parcel of land either nearby
or maybe in some other
parts of the city so we can conserve a certain percentage
of tree canopy and
upland habitat is that what that's suggesting that leave
the door open for
that option to happen I have been doing development review
for 18 years and
doing is as for over 10 and we have had a couple of
instances where developer
have tried that this the size of the preservation area
matters especially
because you wanted to put some sort of in some sort of
conservation easement so
if you are talking about less than one acre chances are
that you will find
somebody who might be interested in do a conservation area
for one acre will be
hard so what I'm saying is given that the right conditions
given the right
layers it is a possibility have not been done however I
will not try to exclude
that option because have not happened yet but that
provision leave the door
open for that to happen and that would probably suggest
that the city get
involved financially to cover that causes that probably
true to or are
there other ways in other words if we're gonna you know
well no I take that back
the developer would come in to play their own part of that
but we'd have to
set some kind of areas aside that within the city that I
guess this Commission
City Council could agree on well if you're referring as a
creating a
mitigation bank where developers can go and purchase that
right now if we use
the example that the Court of Engineer uses for wetland
mitigation those are
actually probably owned by entities okay and they have
aside those areas that
provide the half wetlands and things like that and then the
developer goes
like they will go to any other bank and say I'm interesting
on purchasing from
you X number of credit the number of credits are determined
by the Court of
Engineers based on the proposed meeting impact so and have
worked so far is a
private driven market to be honest with you where they
establish the the price
for those units and so far so at this point I don't know if
the city will
entertain the idea to actually create a bank like that but
I would say I will
not say that it's not possible but the that option if
somebody happens to have
to see that as a more credible idea somebody can pursue it
they could be a
part of future discussion definitely okay okay thank you
Commissioner Rizzo
thank you chair thank you Deborah for the presentation I
need to hopefully get
some clarification before I ask a question can you go back
to your very
first slide where it talked about the reasons or the
motives for this
no no no one more it talked about MS4 okay so these four
items listed here are
all economic benefits to the city I'm wondering is the sole
intent and motive
behind this manual to protect the economics of the city or
to protect the
actual habitats found in S to the B because as you
mentioned the four items that are
adding value to the city you're not mentioning tree canopy
critters birds
any of that listed here it's all economic value so I'm
wondering if you
can clarify the city's motive in all of this and I
apologize that one of the
slides that I that I skipped was actually the six basic
functions of
environmental sensitive area first is to provide habitat
and most of the time is
is their methods to quantify that in a monotonous way to
provide some because
most of the time what they they do is how much it will take
for us to mimic
that habitat and we can make those those numbers but
sometimes it is hard to
quantify that so by preserving is as we are preserving
habitat which is a
benefit not only for the wildlife but for for for for us
surface as a conduit
all those these are allows that the the wildlife the plants
the material to move
from point A to point B it works as a barrier for example
sedimentation
pollutants it stops that even hydrocarbons when we have a
spill and
that hydrocarbons is allowed to go through some sort of
grassy area all of
that hydrocarbons are captured by the by the vegetation
filter pollutants
sediments is a pollutant source of resources and provide
supply like
organic matter nutrients and aquifer recharge all the
vegetation that you see
a lone Creek all the foliage that falls into the water
those are actually the
food that the creature downstream are going to use to feed
from and those
creatures are the food of fish and then you can see how how
the chain progresses
all the way to to us and it's a source of resources we have
our one of the one
of our sort of portable water is Lake Lewisville so the
cleaner we we keep the
water going to discharge into the lake the less treatment
that we are having to
provide to make that water portable and sink and sequest
ration of pollutant
carbon would be one of those that have been linked to the
climate change so
those are the more environmental functions that we get out
of it
interesting enough is approximately over 50% of the tree
canopy in the in the
city is within some sort of ESA so just by 50% of the tree
canopy is within some
sort of ESA so just by preserving the ESA we also
maintaining our tree canopy
for the city which is something that the community have
rated highly important
for them so those are the the the environmentally more
driven reasons to
why to maintain but there are more pragmatic uses to also
preserve ESAs and
those are for compliance with permitting improving our
score in the floodplain
management so forth so a little bit of more less
quantitative and the other
sides more quantitative so thank you very much I really
appreciate that and
and based on on those six things just to bring back what I
talked about in work
session it seems like we would want to protect these six
things regardless of
the use going into the property in the new rules it's 50%
for residential and
30% for non-residential and talking to staff I understand
that non-residential
does have landscape requirements and barriers that they do
add but those
aren't creating SS those are function of some beaut
ification of the property and
I would say residential property owners want to put trees
in their front yards
and they have landscaping around there in front of the
house and in their
backyard and so I I think those should be equal I think
especially if one of
the reasons why their residential use is 50% is because
developers can charge
more for treating property I think that is not an
appropriate reason to have an
increased amount of upland habitat specifically on the
property just
because we assume that developers gonna make more money off
of it and so I don't
want to belabor the point but I do feel that I have yet to
be convinced why the
city is proposing two different percentages based on use
when I think if
we are about protecting upland habitat then it shouldn't
matter who's destroying
it we want to protect it so I think either non-residential
you should go to
50% or seemingly because of the other points brought up in
work session about
the issues with residential property owners not having
access to their
property I'd be more of opponent proponent of dropping the
residential
use down to 30% but I just think it and maybe I'm missing
something you can help
me understand I don't understand why non-residential are
allowed to tear down
more upland habitat and not keep it contiguous and that
they can just keep
the tree canopy in line with the potential tree code
provisions okay well
we are starting from right now that we preserving zero on
non-residential
development for upland habitat to a 30% which is is an
improvement okay
non-residential development they have parking areas loading
docks maneuvering
geometry that they have to maintain to make their site plan
workable okay they
also are some of them they will come to the city with a
preconceived site plan
which it worked for them in other locations and would like
to implement the
same here so I see why that the 30% to the to the non-
residential is given
that the other side was when I was reviewing this the tree
code was also
being redrafted okay and the 30% was something that is
where the language
which I believe still there it was trying to attain so in
we want to make
development in that and feasible okay so we try to by
maintaining that 30%
consistency if they were to have to preserve 30% for tree
canopy they can use
the open habitat to meet that code as well so it was a way
to improve of what
we currently have from 0 to 30 and also to provide some
place flexibility to
non-residential developer and to actually trying to pass
the benefit of
preserving our plan and make them count towards other
requirements so that was
the intent behind that however if this Commissioner would
like to change that
percentage and make and make that part of your
recommendation a staff would
pass that recommendation to City Council as well so just if
there's something in
the code right now that you are not hundred percent if the
Commission as a
whole is not hundred percent what it either want to
increase or actually want
to make the requirements lesser let us know and make that
part of your
recommendation and we will pass that so I don't want to
because we have not you
are not agreeing with every single word of that is just
prevent you to actually
move forward with it with the proposed changes that some of
them are really
needed I appreciate the context thank you Commissioner
Sullivan yes has I
haven't heard anything so I'm just curious you know to
state and national
level there is a process whereby you can turn land over to
the state into the
national federal government in return you get tax benefits
and so forth
conservation easements and is there any provision whereby
the changes to the
code renders either all or a portion of somebody's property
unusable in other
words they can't make any changes it's a certain
designation ESA whatever and it
basically renders it unusable is there any thought to
saying you know what you
deed this over to the city because the city is telling you
you can't do anything
within this area you deed it over to the city the city
takes it over in an
exchange whether for cash or for tax benefit making a
charitable contribution
to the city or something of that effect whereby the land
owner gets some benefit
by the city effectively taking that land from them well the
conservation easement
most of the time they are not driven by the city they are
actually institution
that manage them and how they work this let's say that you
have hundred acres of
development you can actually restrict the development
rights on your property
let's say that is a farm right now with potential to be rez
oned into single
family and being a subdivision you can actually put a
conservation easement
where you say this area will not be developed more than
this amount of units
okay even though I'm capping that and then you're trading
your development
rights and by doing that you can get some tax reduction
because you are your
the property the value of the property no longer allows for
maximizing hundred
units per acre now is limited to 30 so the value of your
property changes
according to it and you get the benefits through some sort
of tax but those
conservations easements are not provided by the city they
're usually run by
institution we have some in the state of Texas we have some
landowners most of
time big ranches that actually pursue that but it's not
through city
government through conservation easement and those
organizations who manage them
but the effect of the property owner is the same and that
is that they are
giving up a portion of their land not necessarily because
they want to but
because of these changes being made to the code require
them to give up some of
the land so in effect the city really is taking that land
and now you have all
kinds of issues going on and so you know I think there's
needs to be some talk as
Commissioner Roselle is talking it seems like it's sort of
all faith in the favor
of the city well I think the city needs to give some of
that back to the homeowner
to the landowner so that if they're willing to abide by
these rules then
deed it to the city let the city take it over and get some
tax benefit for the
landowner for example the flood plain is the is that number
one type of visa that
is larger in acreage you know because it's a floodplain if
you were to
developed if you were to develop property who has a flood
penny a floodplain FEMA
hundred-year floodplain most of that area the city would
not allow you to do to
put any structures to it why because when you do that you
are actually
reducing the the value storage you are increasing the water
surface elevation
and you are making condition the flooding conditions
downstream of you
worst okay so in those instances the city is required you
to put a drainage
easement on it what it means is you own the land is yours
what you are doing is
restricting they use the development of that of that
section of your property
because it is within a essay we have three type of ESA that
most of the time
are nested in floodplaining essay so when you put a
drainage easement on your
property just to meet the floodplain requirements nothing
else just to you
are preserving for the most time those three both of ESA so
in those and that's
why some of our definitions are crafted very carefully to
make sure that when
development happens if they're already having to provide a
drainage easement
because floodplain conditions then you already meeting the
ESA floodplain so
use us in the way that have been it doesn't work in every
in every instance
hundred percent but most of the time we have crafted the
language to allow the
developers and homeowners to actually meet multiple
requirements drainage
landscape opens minimum open space and so on by preserving
the essay so we are
look we are open to to other options but the condition that
the code have been
drafted with that mentality already I've got a couple more
questions that we
didn't get to in work session I've got a question on in
regards to the page turn
I guess this would be section 17.7 be section 3 standard
for fill and
undeveloped floodplains okay yes and as I read this it says
filling of any flood
plane of a stream that drains more
and one square miles per unless the fill on any lot is less
than 50 cubic yards
or 300 cubic feet per acre whichever is greater and further
on in E it talks
about fill being concrete or aggregate and there's a
description of what is
Phil my question is thinking like I think is that if you
have a lot or a
piece of property that has undeveloped floodplain on it and
it's considered a
lot or an acre you can't come do in excess of 50 cubic
yards of material on
that lot anywhere the way that this is written it doesn't
say it's in the flood
plane it just says unless the fill on any lot is less than
50 cubic yards so if
you have a lot that has undeveloped floodplain on it you
can't put 50 cubic
yards of material on it well this is meant they the ESA is
the floodplain
itself okay so this call deals with with those ESA the
limitation on the field is
is intended to to be within the floodplain so if your lot
is partially
outside of the floodplain and you are willing to put a fill
on that lot but
not encumber into the floodplain you are allowed the
problem is when you want you
decide is to go over that threshold within the floodplain
this is it have
two connections first by the I understand that part I'm
just reading
what it says okay is that if you have floodplain on there
it's prohibited
unless the fill is on any lot less than 50 cubic yards it
doesn't say that if
it's in the floodplain it just says if it's on the lot so
for clarification
purposes I think it needs to be clarified kind of what you
're describing
is that it can't be in the floodplain because the way I
read it now is that it
can't be on the lot if a piece of the lot is in the flood
plain does that make
sense yeah I can definitely rework that lot language to
make it clear okay
because you at that point if you have a lot that has any
floodplain on it it's
an unbuildable lot essentially yes so that was one just
item that was pretty
straightforward I had some questions in work session I want
to revisit a couple
of them really quickly just since we're in public session
for those that may
have not been watching work session one of the things that
I would like for us
to take a look at and get some clarification on is back in
35 17.2 a it
says within the corporate limits of the city of Denton
except is otherwise
specifically provided for in this subsection when you go
farther into this
subsection and go to 35 17 6 it says official maps it says
the official map
that identifies areas designated as ESA's and my question
at work session was
when you first read this it sounds like it just applies to
the corporate limits
city limits of Denton but when you go to this provision
that I just brought up
about applicable or official maps it actually some of this
applies to the ETJ
and I think you clarified in work session that it's not the
open habitat
but it has to do with wet yeah with a plane so cleaners
yeah the item 17 point
two point B it says the floodplain standard of this sub
chapter shall apply
to all land and all development within the extra-territory
jurisdiction of the
city and that is granted to the city by the state based on
the protection of
water resources that's the reason behind it so that's why
we made the
clarification upland habitat water related habitat or
repairing buffer that
is located outside the city limits a we have no
jurisdiction over those okay the
ESA regulations does not apply to those the only ESA that
we have jurisdiction
in the ETJ is floodplain and most of the time when
development happens in the ETJ
because it's floodplain that area will be set aside through
some sort of drainage
easement so through that through providing that mechanism
on the plot
itself they are providing they are meeting the protection
of the floodplain
ESA if you don't mind would you pull up the interactive map
for the city of
Denton and then go on the links where it says ESA just bear
with me sure so
, thank you.
So when you go over on the ESA's and hit the button to
expand it the little
triangle to the left would you just click on the bottom
where it says ESA
floodplain designations and let's light up what that
entails there you go so
that's everything that's floodplain okay and if you'll
click on then the
skip the ESA habitats but click on the one that says ESA
stream buffers
it is shown in pale yellow very skinny line inside the
floodplain you might zoom in a little
if you'll click it back off the last button we just put on
there the ESA
stream buffers yes that's what we're talking about that you
all do regulate
so not only the floodplain within all of these stream buff
ers are the areas that
you regulate not only in the city of Denton but then also
out in the ETJ is
it correct well if there is a riparian buffer okay and if
you read what the
regulations are between floodplain and riparian buffers and
water related you
will find that the regulations of water related and rip
arian buffers are more
stringent the reason why is because that's the last line of
defense before a
pollutant can get waterborne okay so you will see that the
requirements are a
little bit more stringent in those so if you are in the ETJ
for example we will
be able to regulate within the floodplain okay but we will
not be able
to regulate the riparian buffer okay so in some extent you
would be entitled to
do the requirements in the ETJ because it's just limited to
the floodplain
and not the riparian buffer and not the water related in
some extent are a little
bit lesser than what will be in the city limits okay so I
could not tell them for
example that they will have to work under the riparian
buffer for the
installation of something because if it is a permitted use
within the floodplain
for example installation of a utility line by open trench
ing so if you were to
do that in the ETJ you can probably open trench all through
it okay because the
only thing that I have regulations on is the floodplain not
the riparian buffer or
the water related I may have misunderstood what you said
when you were
stating that the only thing that you could do in the ETJ
where the water
related I'm sorry is floodplain floodplain so when you
click on the
button back again where it says stream buffers all those
that pop up in the
city limits and when you go outside into the ETJ they're
nice to be on the map
but you don't have any regulation of those or you do
correct no I don't have
and they one of the reason is the the ESA map is also a
tool for us when we
are considering annexations for example those are lands
that are currently in
the ETJ and when they are they come in they will be subject
to all city
regulations so in those instances when we do the evaluation
it helps them
understand what is it is very typical of me then when I
review a proposal in the
ETJ I I acknowledge the presence of all the type of ESS I
made me very clear
which one we have jurisdiction on however we always for
example if there's
open habitat even though I cannot require preservation of
it I said you
know if you could consider the preservation of the of the
existing
habitat on your property so some of them are many
developers they see that as a
added value to the property and they already have
incorporated the
preservation into it so it is a suggestion at that point
but we try to
at least educate the applicant of the value of the habitat
that they have on
site okay so when you when you turn those back off and it's
just a purple
those are the things they're in floodplain and then
everything else that's
in brown that's there in the city limits is what you're
talking about as far as
the authority and possibly going on into ETJ on some of
those correct and for
this map for example all that red stuff means that those
are repairing buffer
designation that have been removed why it because that is
the pecan Creek going
through the middle of town who have been heavily harnessed
concreted in so we have
removed those designation we still show them on the map but
if you click on
information it will tell you that there was an ESAP field
assessment done and so
on so you kind of have all that paper trail created so we
provide sometimes
we provide more information and that you know create some
confusion but
sometimes the more we provide the better so in that way
developers can make a
educated decision so is this the official map essentially
or is there
someplace else that you can get a copy this is this is just
the interactive
map if we have a paper copy it would look like just keep in
mind the ESA map
is amended on a regular basis the map by no means is
hundred percent accurate but
it's a good it's a good start it's a good indication to
make us pause for a
moment and say we have to reassess few things if there are
questions about the
presence of the of the ESAS we can do a city field
assessment at no cost to the
applicant and we will go we have a specific criteria for
each type of ESA
if that criteria is not met then we will require we will
conclude that that
designation should be removed we notify the the planning
director about the need
of changing and what area needs to be changed so we the ESA
map is a living
document it changes all the changes that are from time to
time happen is when
FEMA reissue firms which is the floodplain insurance map
and they
sometimes they take ten years to change those when the
floodplain when the FEMA
floodplain changes our boundary changes as well because in
the way that we have
defined the floodplain ESA it matches that boundary when
somebody wants to do
a reclamation of the floodplain meaning that they will do
some type of exclamation
to reduce or to modify the change of it that goes through a
clomer which stands
for conditional letter of man revision and then goes
through a long more process
and that is approved by the city and by FEMA when FEMA
changes the boundary
through the long more process it changes the definition of
the floodplain with it
so the ESA map is a living document that changes just I
think I think you
addressed those changes amendments to the map correct in
there and I think it's
on there 35 17 6 B is that correct with those we all the
would that be the
process for amendments
okay I had one final question on 17.5 D water related
habitat it says areas
designated as wetland is there a definition for that or
where do we find
that and how is that determined what land those are
transitional have from
from my ecological I'm going to give you the ecological
definition of it okay the
ecological definition of a wetlands that they are
transitional habitat which
withstand some sort of flood condition for some period of
time okay because the
inundation conditions that they experience there's certain
type of plant
species that live there because they are they tolerate the
inundation process
the soils change characteristics and also they are
hydraulic characteristics so
you will see a watermark depicted and you see the oxidation
reduction of the
soil and that's where the watermark is or that so those are
characteristic those
are the scientific ecological definition of what a wetland
is many of the people
many of the comments have addressed or hinges upon the
definition of what
wetlands by the Court of Engineers is if you read the Court
of Engineers
definition all that is is tied to navigable waters to
commerce to be able
to promote commerce in your state comments okay so when
they were so the
wetlands that are protected by the core are those who are
hydrologically
connected to a water body that is deemed navigable okay so
if we take that limited
concept of it then if we go by the definition of the core
more it will be
less areas protected of wetlands wetlands are incredible
habitats they do
fantastic services as filtration devices okay so if we
limit that to what the
court in the way that the court defined wetlands or provide
protections to it
then many of the habitats that are good to maintain will be
our order of
protection so our definition as it is it is more broad than
what other state or
federal agencies define what is that in here somewhere no
that's the only
definition is that something that you would like to it's
stuff to expand
provide a definition on on wetlands I think it's necessary
to define the term
especially if for your discussion if city didn't has a
determination of what
what a wetland is which is different than what the state or
the federal
government says I think it needs to be spelled out here's
what the city of
Denton determines as a wetland for everybody to understand
if you have this
on your property you have for the city of Denton a wetland
okay okay so I'm
familiar with where your what you're defining because I see
them in phase one
reports it'll have a designation on it that this is on the
map and if it's not
on that map you proceed forward with it however the city
didn't may have a
different determination what a wetland is versus what's on
the maps that all
these people that do this for a living produce for us and
say yeah this
property's got a clean phase one on it and it's nothing on
it you say that's
wetland on it because we are creating the E-Secretary
manual where all the
more technical part would be would this be something that
you would like to see
in the DDC as a part of 17 or would you like to see that as
a part of the
criteria manual as I recall as I read this it says that if
it's more stringent
in the code and what's in the criteria manual then what's
in the code prevails
is that correct on how this is written so I think it should
be in the actual
code rather than in the criteria maybe put it in both you
know
thank you I got a couple more questions Commissioner Ellis
thank you chair
Deborah thanks for your work in this my question has to do
with the alternative
ESA plan so you can basically walk me through why we're
considering it a
zoning amendment procedure a zoning amendment procedure if
you go back to
sub chapter three three I believe on the DDC establishes a
different processes
and the is called the process the zoning amendment
procedure just because
requires the public hearing process before the planning and
zoning Commission
and City Council that's that's the reason why it's called a
zoning amendment
procedure because it really is nothing to do with zoning
this all has to do with
development yeah the zoning is not in question is just
followed the steps
require through a any zoning change which is planning and
zoning
notification newspaper public hearing before the planning
and zoning Commission
recommendation from the planning and zoning Commission and
the final
approval of City Council okay just so I understand so so
going this route so it
can be a public hearing is that what you're saying correct
okay thank you
Commissioner Sanchez yeah I worked as a biologist biologist
for 30 years and we
talked about habitat wetland habitat it was based primarily
on the vegetation and
the soils and that's what we would look at we go in there I
mean you just that's
the definition primarily you can't deviate from that yeah
and the other
question I had is when we talk we talked a lot a lot about
upland habitat and
preserving that you know Mother Nature did a good job here
in the cross timbers
fire was a big proponent of managing the cross-land timbers
we've taken that out
of there so a lot of these habitats that we have are very
deteriorated so I it's
hard for me when we start talking about little areas five
ten twenty acres they're
really going to be if without burning they're just going to
deteriorate so I'm
just wondering why are we maintaining these small areas
when they really don't
really see what's the word I want they're not they're not
going to do a
whole lot because they're over time they're just deterior
ating yeah because
fire is a big part of the understory I mean the grasses are
a big part of the
understory and that's what would carry through the fires
through the through
this habitat and as and as I see a lot of areas you don't
have a lot of
vegetation on the ground on the ground on the surface you
know a lot of has
just deteriorated you have just invade invasive grasses so
you're just
maintaining primarily you're maintaining the woodlands you
know but even those
it's hard for me to see how we're maintaining upland
habitat without
managing them somehow yeah well so and that that brings a
very good point in
nature if if this were not within the urban setting okay
fire is a big
management tool okay this is how habitats they renew
themselves that's
how invasive species are control and so on sometimes you
need to even open up
the canopy to allow the understory and the juvenile to be
able to reach out
enough sunlight to grow so these areas are should be
managed and I want to use
carefully the word managed okay if you see all the all the
permitted uses
within all the top of the four type of ESA some sort of
management provision is
allowed removal or of invasive planting of native pruning
up to 25% of the
canopy of upland habitat for the health of the habitat so
these eases are meant
to be managed that is different from manicuring the ESA
okay it's different
perspective so that's why I wanted to use the word
management carefully if you
if those are you needs to be intervene to actually restore
them make them
better you are allowed to do it by right okay because
sometimes you need it
repairing buffers if the if the watershed have been urban
ized for
example you are putting more runoff through those through
those channels
that if it's not been dealt or if it is a watershed that
have been developed
under you know long time ago where none of the floodplain
standards were in place
probably those those channels are eroding already and the
vegetation might
be gone because that's the way that the creek adjust the
channel adjust to the
changes so in those instances by all means go there and if
you can do it you
are entitled to do it so yeah those those eases are meant
to be in some level
managed if they need to thank you for answering all of our
questions I don't
have anymore this is a public hearing I don't have any
cards on this item but
anyone who would like to speak on this item please come
forward at this time if
you'll give us your name and address and please an old hand
at this he's already
got a card filled out thank you Lee certainly good evening
my name is Lee
Allison with Allison engineering group didn't in Texas I'm
here to speak on
behalf of the Denton Community Development Alliance as I
get into it
I'd like to put the emphasis on community development we're
not the
developers Alliance we're not here to try and get the city
to redact all its
rules so developers can come in and do what they want but
we're here working on
behalf of the community and the property owners and the
people who maintain
property and manage property and live in property and work
and play here to have a
community that develops providing opportunities similar for
the
undeveloped elements of the community that the development
commit elements had
when they came here and in general we not sure where we
stand on this
particular ordinance when it when I worked on ordinances or
items similar to
this we usually start with with before principles and
practices we we have I
had the word in the head top my head a minute ago and now I
forgot it but what
are the guiding things we know we want to keep the water
quality in Lake
Louisville it's a it's where our drinking water comes from
that's a fact
a principle a policy is that we don't want development to
degrade the water
quality in Lake Louisville is and then what are the
practices we provide
protections against what would degrade development
practices that would degrade
the water quality and maybe we provide incentives for those
practices that
might help improve the water quality above what it is today
certainly we don't
have a Boston Harbor issue or a Chicago issue where we got
meat fats floating on
top of the river allowing it to burn across town and and
destroy the rest of
the city the DCDA submitted 43 comments to staff those are
included in the 61 in
the list that you were given our concern is that in that
list what is missing is
a column there's not a column in there that shows the staff
comments related
to responses to our comments how they might have been
addressed or thought of
or whether they were good or not good or should be included
in the TCM or
whatever there's that's there's just nothing there related
to the staff's
position secondly related to that the draft ordinance you
have tonight is the
same draft ordinance that we were given the comment on a
couple of months ago so
apparently our comments were not very impressive because it
made absolutely
zero changes in the ordinance that's being presented
tonight again when it
comes to policy I believe Deborah stated there was only one
policy change in the
overall ordinance and that was increasing to require
commercial
properties to be subject to the upland habitat prepers
preservations and that's the only one that we saw that that
was addressed or
thought of in all the comments we had and I can't say that
's a movement in the
wrong direction just saying that's the only policy
statement that seems to have
been addressed in all this and when it comes to practices
we don't see that
there are any changes a couple of things that we have most
interest in and one of
them is the process the fact that has to go through a
zoning ordinance ESA's oh
man I'm going fast ESA's are land characteristics not land
uses the
council can hear a plat if it wants to it has the authority
to delegate plat
approvals to PNZ this could be kept going to council it
could have public
hearings but with the zoning ordinance is subject to the
supermajority rules
and the neighbors opposing and I've got a couple of
examples of ESA's I wouldn't
do one for a client unless I get paid in front because they
got very little
chance of getting through because of the zoning process and
I think there's other
processes that could do that when it comes to the 50 cubic
yards of fill on a
piece of land that's less than a half inch over an acre we
have meaningless
offers of how you can get into the developed floodplain
because it's not
worth getting into for that little mountain so could go on
and on but I'll obviously stop thank you
I have a question for you yes did you have any meetings
with city
staff on your 43 comments or did you submit the comments
and no follow-up
meetings to talk about them Deborah and I met on December
the 22nd and went over
them I hand my comments were mostly handwritten at that
time and we discussed
them and she explained to me the history of the why they're
using the zoning
ordinance and not another mechanism to bring those items
before counsel and then
I wrote up all of the comments and submitted to her on
behalf of DCDA after
that okay but did you have any follow-up conversations of
what have we done on
item for aid or whatever it's just these are the comments
and then there's no
follow-up of no Deborah did help me become aware when it
was going to come as
a workshop item but we had no real discussions back and
forth or with our
group regarding the merits of any any particular item that
was brought up okay
Commissioner Ellis thank you chair hi mr. Allison can you
share with me how you
would like to see the procedure would you like it to have
its own procedure as
far as an alternative ECA yes a the alternative ESA is fine
it's just that
instead of going forward as a zoning it could go forward as
either a subdivision
variance or just like an alternative development plan does
now it's just that
the council could say for I believe they can and I'm not
gonna ask you to chime in
now mr. Flores but you'll give the final say so I think the
council could say
we're not gonna delegate approval of alternative ESAs to PN
Z and it has to go
to City Council well I was just gonna make a comment after
after you finished
but maybe if I can have Deborah come up because I know we
discussed this because
there's been some talk about what the process or appeal
process would be
Deborah would you mind explaining the difference between
designation of an ESA
and then approval of an alternative plan the designation of
an ESA is
determined by a field assessment okay we have we have the E
SA map which is a
first chance to to to look into areas that should be
protected if the ESAs if
there is questions about the validity of the map as is
shown the applicant has
the right to request a field assessment either staff will
do it at the applicant
request or the applicant can hire a consultant a biologist
to do it and what
it does is go through a criteria of vegetation of soil and
hydrology okay and
we look into what is in the back what is about the bank and
so on so it is a the
criteria that we use is the same very similar to what the
Court of Engineers
have been used when we did our research we research not
only state of Texas but
nationwide and so on so this is the typical criteria that a
for example a
wetland delineator we use okay so after we go to this to
the side we do the
assessment or the applicants submit their assessment
through a third party
we review it if we concord with the with the conclusions
either the ESA is there
or the ESA is there but not as shown is moved around or the
type of ESA is
different then we will issue a memo to the planning
director to request the
change the officially change of the map I guess my question
is to be more
specific is the the appellate board or the board that would
that would hear the
the appeal for one for for ESA determinations and two for
alternative
plans okay the new process proposed for appealing and again
this is completely
new is it would be through the zoning board of adjustment
process meaning that
there will be a public hearing advertisement and all that
and it will
be the applicant will have a chance to make their case a
staff would provide a
recommendation and then that's how the appeal of a staff
determination of what
type of ESA or the president of the ESA is going to be okay
the difference
between that and the alternative ESA plan is that it goes
through the planning
and zoning Commission and City Council now is the
alternative is that process
any different than it is currently no no it is is is follow
the same so the only
difference the only change to the ESA ordinance is the
additional appellate
procedure before be zoning board of adjustment correct for
ESA
determinations at the outset correct okay and mr. Allison I
'm not sure that
helps or answers clarifies in any of the questions you had
not at all
he says they're still not in my mind still not a zoning
issue and when you're
looking at the presence of an ESA and staff determination
that can be appealed
via the zoning board of adjustments again you're back into
the zone but I've
never really had any issues with that then once it's
established that there is
an ESA and you want to modify that ESA then you have to go
through the
alternative ESA problem because the alternative ESA is not
addressed whether
it's there or not it's how do we deal with the one that is
there and then
that gets run through as a zoning process and the real
issue with the
zoning process is not rather P&Z and City Council hear it
not whether there's
a public hearing or not the real issue is driving the super
majority requirement
I've had instances where staff is recommended approval and
because of
neighbors public opinion that drove a super majority
council voted against it
I had a previous P&Z member come to me one time and say why
don't y'all put
that retaining wall there you should have moved it way up
closer I said
because you wouldn't let us you know you wouldn't approve
that alternate ESA and
I won't go further into that but that's the kind of things
we're dealing with
with that type of the process the alternative ESA in
general is not an
issue with it it's the actual process with the not even the
public hearing is
the potential of the super majority as you would for land
use versus modifying
land characteristics FEMA doesn't have to go through a
zoning process to change
the maps and yet we have to go through that to let us do
things that FEMA would
allow us to do that the city doesn't even allow us to do
and it's kind of
like well just like the National Flood Insurance Program do
our ordinances help
set a maximum insurance rate here yes what are the
insurance company charging
here should we relax our ordinances to let that maximum
come down I've seen
that with fire a good reason to have ordinances is to keep
your maximum rate
down but if the insurance companies aren't charging
anywhere near that rate
anyway are we realizing that economic benefit are we really
accomplishing our
goals maybe Deborah if you could explain the rationale
behind having it before
PNC versus MUE originally the alternative ESA plan and the
ADP follow
the same process it was meant for to go through PNC and
City Council the then
that the ADP were process change and ESA stand following
the the original
procedure the reason why PNC City Council of retain is they
feel that they
want to have the ability to hear those cases as a public
hearing I correct me
if around if there's any other procedures current
procedures outline in
subchapter 3 that go through public hearings without the
super majority
that's there's not so that would have been for for to take
the super majority
possibility out of the context of the hearing then a new
process will have to
be crafted and spell out in subchapter 3 and then sub
chapter 17 will have to
say this process the alternative ESA plan will follow this
new process
well I'll just chime in and I'm a recognized Commissioner
back that was
one of the things I mentioned in work session that's a
concern of mine as well
is that it's it's great to offer that as an alternative
kind of a lot of the
discussion that we had but at the end of the day it becomes
a political decision
as to whether you're going to get an alternative ESA plan
granted or not it's
not a criteria if you do these four things it gets approved
it's you can do
all these things and we still may as a body not approve it
and so that's one of
the concerns that I shared at work session I want to just
bring back here
at this point to Commissioner back thank you chair Lee
first of all thanks for
coming up and making your presentation it makes me a little
bit more aware of
what's out there and you know you and I usually stand on
opposite sides of thing
but I have a lot of respect for you and as a result of that
I am kind of
disappointed here that how many of these suggestions that
are here did you say
were yours about 30 or 60 percent of them listed there now
other people may
have commented on the same thing but we submitted 43
comments that got included
in that full list of 61 by us and others and I think you
should have a fair
hearing on that I know in the past we've talked about the
tree code we talked
about doing workshops on that because there was a the devil
's are in the the
devil is in the details and we haven't had that yet either
and I hope we do
because I want to hear both sides the argument I don't want
anybody to be
railroaded so would workshops as much as I know staff would
like to see this go
forward I kind of like to see it go forward too but at the
same time I'd
like to make sure that everybody's had a fair hearing so
workshops with that
benefit you where we can all sit down and hear your griev
ances along with
staff that would be appreciated and I'd also like to say in
the last year the
staff across the board has been making noble efforts to try
and correct a lot
of things and fix a lot of things and thanks for saying I
get up talk about
the one or two things we have an issue with versus the
thousands of things that
are going great but yes that we have appreciated okay well
that'd be something
to consider them thank you
I see no other questions thank you this is a public hearing
anyone else who would
like to come speak on this island please come forward at
this time seeing none
will close the public hearing and I will open the floor for
discussion or a
motion Commissioner Beck thank you chair now as I mentioned
mr. Allison for the
most part I have no problem with this revision there's a
lot of good stuff to
it but on the other hand and I've heard expressed with
commissioners in the in
our work session too that some more discussion is probably
needed on this so
I wouldn't be reluctant to putting this off a little bit
longer I know it's been
13 months never know you're eager to but I want to make
sure that both sides are
heard and there is counter arguments to the concerns
everybody has here that I'd
like to present to and get them out there in the open and
have that
opportunity so you know if we consider this a motion to
move forward I wouldn't
be opposed to that I'm not gonna make a motion at this time
okay
you mean Commissioner Ellis thank you chair yeah I mean I
have some of those
same thoughts we we have too many unanswered questions I
think and too
many things that that I guess haven't been addressed
whether we haven't had
enough time together to to to address them or not but it
does seem like we
need more discussion just to get those things answered so
that that we can move
forward with a recommendation most of this I like there
just seems to be a few
questions out there and in concerns that that haven't been
answered yet and I
think it's been lack of time both of our work sessions the
last two meetings
we've literally run out of time in the middle of your
presentation so I don't
know how we can fix that if we can if we can move that to
another work session or
how we do that but we need some kind of uninterrupted time
to be able to I think
get to the bottom of some of these concerns so that we can
give a
recommendation I don't think we're there tonight
Commissioner Sanchez yeah I know we we spent a lot of time
discussing this and
I'm still kind of confused this whole thing since this is
the first time I you
know I'm relatively new again but I think we need more time
to discuss it
that was I think one of the things we said at our work
session is that we need
a little bit more time so I'd like to see this postponed
and have another run
at it and see what comes out of the more understanding
staff is willing to do a and another work session we can
either have a regular
work session of an hour just for ESA or we can have an
early work session or we
can have just a work session not right before the regular P
NC sessions in that
way there will be more time for discussion if that's
something that you
would like to to do this is a public hearing we already
notified so if you
can determine that a date to continue and then between now
and that day to
have the work session meeting with you the staff is
perfectly fine with that
and then I have the 61 comments I have answers for those
the the reason why that
those were not reflected on the draft that you were reading
is because those
were the changes that COE have heard and was vetted through
it however that
doesn't means that you can make a proposed change to the to
the language
and that as a part of your recommendation when the public
hearing
is done so we will provide answers for those for you 61
comments right now if
you have a specific questions please please please send it
to me and I will
make sure that those items are extensively discussed during
the work
session items some of you have sent me questions by email
and those have been
answered as well so please take the chance to send me those
emails in that
way I can really tailor the work session to address those
comments or those
questions to your question I guess I'll give some thoughts
and feedback so the
the backup that we had with all the comments the process
went those went to
the COE and they chose essentially to not from October of
2016 through I'm sorry
August of 2013 of 2016 through August of 2017 so those are
the the 13 month
abetting process that we did with the COE when we have
finished all those
comments those were the the draft posted online for public
input so the COE have
not seen those comments and we were hoping that after going
through PNC we
collect your input your recommendation whatever changes you
are proposing and
forward those to the the City Council as a whole and
showing what the COE have
proposed what the PNC is now proposing and then show the
list of public input
that we have received if necessary we will provide a
written a response for
every single of them I went through them I have responses
so we can do that so in
that way everybody who has been involved in the process
from the get-go can see
the changes throughout and City Council can make a final
recommendation or a
final decision well I think that would be a good step for
us to have I know for
this Commission and a lot of times we sit up here and one
of the first
questions we ask when it's a private have y'all had a
neighborhood meeting and
this is a neighborhood meeting comment to me and when we
have those come to us
the first thing we turn around to the developer of all
these things that were
brought up in your neighborhood meeting what you do about
them and usually the
reception is we didn't do anything with them is not
received well and I think
it's good just from the city standpoint when we ask people
to do that even
though it's not mandatory it's highly encouraged go have a
neighborhood
meeting hopefully there's some resolution there if there
can't be we
understand we want to hear both sides of it and then this
board or Commission can
make a determination and move it to City Council I think
that's an important step
for us as a city to lead by example that we ask other
people to do that and I
think we should do that too to be able to say hey we got 60
-something comments
20 of them we addressed 20 of them we didn't agree with and
20 of these we'd
like to throw up here and you guys can bat them around and
decide which
direction you want to go on them and I think that's
something that should be
incorporated to your point of kind of next steps how we
move this forward I'd
like to see it continued like to see these comments
addressed so that we can
come back and say okay we see the processes has moved
forward and I think
one of the other comments I would give the difficulty that
I have when at least
for me personally is I know there's a tremendous amount of
effort and work that
goes on behind the scenes to get the ordinance to place to
bring it here
before us and it always seemed like there's been a
tremendous amount of time
and then we see it and y'all vote on it and move it and I'm
like what's the
process for us to review it what's the process for us to
get to people that
send emails telephone calls add those things in there
versus you see it it
needs to move to the next level there doesn't that's an
issue that I personally
have when we have a lot of these changes I think a lot of
things clean up lives
are good in here there's some things as I pointed out
tonight that I read it I
go well the intention may be this but that's not what it
says it needs to be
cleaned up so that it is very clear you can fill or not
fill and how you do it
and some of the other things I brought up and don't want
rehash and I think
those are the things that need to happen when these things
come to us as a
commission is to have an opportunity to review them make
comments to their
suggestions and changes get it good and hopefully move it
to City Council but
when it does get the City Council hopefully it's been very
well vetted
very clean and they can look at and go you know this looks
great there's two
things on here we do different and let's vote on it versus
it gets to City
Council and there's 60 questions and people are coming and
going none of this
has been addressed and it turns into a bog and those City
Council spends a lot
more time on these things than we do and I think one of the
jobs is us as P&Z
Commissioners is hopefully to clean it up and do as best as
we can here and
move it to them that they can look at and go you know what
the folks that we
appointed that board did a good job and we know we're gonna
do our piece to it
and approve it not approve it change it or whatever and so
those would be some
of my thoughts I know you pose a question and we're still
open and so I'm
gonna recognize Commissioner Beck to throw out some other
things and hopefully
we can get something put together on next steps for us
thank you chair
actually you pretty much said it all what I wanted to do
was kind of
encapsulate what we probably should do is set a specific
work session either
prior to a regular work session P&Z or maybe even on a
different day I know I'm
retired here so I can pretty much do it anytime but it
makes it difficult for the
other ones work so that would have to be taking
consideration right Andrew so but
we it needs to be distinctive needs to be at least an hour
I would think you
know maybe a little bit longer and prior to that if you
would send us your
responses to the 60 questions so we can mull over them plus
we need to have Mr.
Allison and others in his area his field of expertise come
there and defend their
positions on that and I think that way we get a good
rounded deal so I think if
we just kind of if I can get a nod from everybody here if
that's okay I could
make that motion and we can move forward does anybody see
problem with that
process as I just line laid out I think the only point of
that is just a
timeframe right I would suggest we want to get it done as
soon as possible
probably 21st two weeks two weeks has had enough time for
everybody we've seen
a lot of it there's just just a smaller stuff now I'll call
on make sure that we
can we can get it done because that's about a week
turnaround okay okay so
maybe have a work session start like at 4 o'clock or even 3
o'clock okay and date
certain of the 21st with prior to that with the responses
from Deborah on the
60 questions and it includes Lee and other members of his
group that want to
have their inputs it from from Lee you wanted no actually I
want your response
you said you had responses for all that's all we want in an
email okay and
Lee just needs to be there to defend his own positions okay
but by the time he
gets there will have read your responses to it so we can
anticipate what he's
gonna say so that's my motion okay commissioner Ellis thank
you chair I
guess just to maybe clarify that you know you've got that
spreadsheet with
all the questions in it and if you just add another column
that just says why or
why not this is already addressed here you know that would
that would be really
helpful you know we want public comment and obviously you
know you're not going
to take all those suggestions and incorporate it I'm sure
but I think you
know whoever made the comment certainly should know why or
what your response is
to the comment and we certainly would love to see that you
know just it
doesn't have to be long and drawn out just this is why or
this is where it's
located or this is why we can't do that or this is how it's
addressed or or
what have you that would be really helpful thank you
do we need to continue the public hearing to a certain day
we will thank
you Commissioner Roselle so first I just wanted to second
or echo everything that
the chair said including the appreciation for the amount of
work
going into this I don't I know for me it's it's not
overlooked this seems like
a lot of work and certainly our my feedback and our
feedback hopefully is
not belittling of any of those efforts but I think there
might be opportunities
to as chair said strengthen the efficiency of this process
but with that
I will second the Commissioner Beck's motion to continue
this item to date
certain February 21st with a additional allocation of time
for work session okay
we have a first and a second do we have any further
discussion or is there
anything legal or staff needs to add to our motion okay
seeing no further
discussion I will call for a vote on the board to continue
to date certain of the
21st motion to continue carry six to zero that will take us
to our I think
our final agenda item this evening is going to be our
project matrix
Commissioner Roselle thank you chair I have two things that
I would like to bring
up for maybe action items in the future the first is
recently brought to my
attention that we have a downtown implementation plan of
2010 that speaks
of eight tenants for planning the downtown area one of
those eight tenants
is form-based zoning for the downtown development I would
like an update if
that is still in existence if that's been amended if the
overarching plan for
downtown is still the downtown implementation plan 2010
what do we as a
P&Z Commission need to do to fulfill the approved P&Z and
council plan for
form-based zoning downtown and maybe second to that what is
form-based
zoning and an education of that if we need to proceed
forward with that I
don't know the accuracy of that because that downtown
implementation plan also
talks about forward in parking and now we do reverse
parking downtown so I don't
I don't know the accuracy of that document but I would like
information
about that downtown implementation plan of 2010 that's the
first thing the
second thing is Scott McDonald talked earlier about traffic
planning and the
future of that and I think the Commission has all said kind
of today in
different ways that we do a whole lot of zoning here and I
think the planning
portion of our responsibilities could be strengthened and I
think one way to kind
of step into strengthening the planning is to really figure
out what's going on
from a traffic standpoint it seems as though that's always
a recurrent issue
and especially considering the council's momentum from
yesterday talking about
bike sharing I just think that as we as a commission try to
plan one of those
purviews is mobility plan and so I think to help maybe
guide council and come
together with them on that effort I'd be really interested
in figuring out that
piece of our planning responsibility in terms of traffic
and I think a broad
stroke would be good but I think it could include biking
and roads and
proactively what where are we able to proactively look at
road I know a lot of
roads and mobility plan have bond tie-ins and they're all
prioritized but
it's it's very rare that we ever proactively look to
increase a road
construction it's always retroactively and if that has to
happen why those
type of questions I'd love to know more about so that we
can as a commission be
more proactive in the planning aspect of this of this job
certainly in fact well
one thing that we've been starting to put together is just
the number of
applications that are pending platting site plan some that
may not come to
public hearing and just sort of generally looking at what's
I mean there's
all sorts of things that go into a TIA but broad picture
what are what are the
trips generating and then starting to look at that on a
citywide basis and
trying to really basically tie into what you're saying you
start to plan for
these types of things so I'll prepare an item and then have
some of that backup
so so so we can have that discussion that sounds great and
maybe it would be
also helpful to clarify our general role in guiding council
and some of these
things the the idea of the bike share decision that
happened at council
yesterday seems like it naturally should have come through
the commission
charged with working through mobility plans and so I don't
know if that is our
purview I know they had discussion about permitting which
is apart from us but we
didn't provide any kind of insight that I know of to
council about mobility as it
comes to to bikes maybe they were using old report or old
minutes but I don't
know where our responsibility falls from like an actual
legal perspective of
what's been charged to us to counsel them and direct them
for and so maybe
that would be helpful just to know like what what we can do
within those bounds
that sounds great thank you commissioner Sullivan yes seems
the last two meetings
or so we've spent a lot of time and looking at residential
zoning in our 1 2
3 4 6 in our MU 12 in our MU and that the one place that we
seem to be caught
up on a lot is why don't we have an NR 5 you know we've
spent last meeting I
don't know how much time cussing and discussing the uses
and abuses of
overlays and we come in here and we vote for an overlay and
so which could have
been avoided because of point 2 density and I'm just
thinking that you know
that's not the first time that that's happened there is one
I think one or two
meetings prior to that I'm just wondering why don't we have
an NR 5 that
would catch those that are kind of leaking over a little
bit that we don't
have to employ an overlay to accomplish the goal in the
very near future as part
of the DDC update you will see that in fact one of the one
of the the the ways
that we're going with this now is actually to kind of go
back to where we
were and not regulate by density but by lot size I had made
a statement
yesterday at City Council on those Audra projects where the
surroundings
subdivisions were at like a 4.3 or 4.4 density and the
reason is that it is
because the minimum lots at that time were 10,000 square
feet so divide 43 by
560 by 10 and you get 4.3 or depending how you around 4.4
and so it's really
caused a problem and now we have a multitude of overlay
districts that
aren't the best to to manage you know moving forward 10-20
years from now and
so that's where we're now looking at looking at those lot
sizes and then
trying to really fit everybody in and not make anybody
really non-conforming
over 0.2 density or anything like that with that if I just
may add at the next
work session what Ron is actually working on is sort of a
public engagement plan
we're going to be moving very swiftly in the very near
future with with the
modules for the DDC update and so within that plan will be
in that engagement
plan will be community meetings subcommittee meetings P&Z
and so that
way before we finalize that we can kind of get it out there
to everybody and
then have have a discussion of do we want to hold you know
separate meetings
or how do we want to proceed moving forward and so we
wanted to get that to
wanted to get that in front of you sooner than later and
have that
discussion
okay with that at 855 I will close us this evening and
thank you everybody for
all your time and efforts