Apr 18, 2018 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2018-04-18 4:00 PM - Special Called

2018. This is a special call meeting to hear module three. This meeting has been duly posted and we do have a quorum present and will call us to order at 405 and our first order of business will be to receive a report , hold a discussion and provide direction to staff. So I'll turn it over to Richard to see who's going to present for us. I'll just be brief. I'll introduce Tark. I think most of you know who he is. He's here to present module three which is the last of the modules. After tonight we will no longer be referring to them as modules but rather than still all with his thunder I'll go ahead and turn over to him. Thanks for the introduction. Good to see you all again. Chairman, members of the Commission and some of you will see this again. Sorry Larry. But great to be back here. This is an exciting time in the project when we 've actually drafted all three parts of the code at this point at least one time . Now we're in the refinement process and that should be as exciting for you as it is for us. We can see the finish line at the end. Now it's time to really focus on the details of what's in the draft. So we're not going to spend any time. You notice our first slide is content-based. We're not going to describe our firm. We're not going to describe how we got here, why we got here, what the schedule is quite yet. We're just going to jump right into the standards for this third and final piece development standards. Remember back to the first piece was all about zoning districts and land uses. The second piece when we were here three weeks ago was about administration and procedures, how you get a project approved. This final piece is all about the quality. We heard a lot about raising the bar for quality in Denton and I mentioned in a couple of meetings earlier today that you already have a lot of really good development in Denton. So it wasn 't a matter of saying everything you have is bad let's make it better. It's capturing the good pieces in Denton and codifying them so that that sets the new minimum bar. This is sub chapter 6, table of contents that you're looking at here at the development standards. There's a lot of material in here, too much to cover in one meeting with the Planning Commission. So what we're going to do is focus in on some of the things that we think will be most interesting, most relevant, will generate the most discussion with you all and then certainly can follow up either with staff in our absence or through public comments, submitting your comments to staff or amongst each other. Today we're going to talk about landscaping, we'll talk about parking and loading, we'll talk about site and building design, we'll briefly mention exterior lighting and then the final part of this sub chapter or pardon me module 3 is subdiv ision and we've got one change there too that we'd like to raise with you as well. Beyond quality standards how we divide lots into additional lots. So jumping right into the details, just a reminder of the goals here for development quality standards. Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. Right now a lot of your standards say if you're in Denton thou shall apply to you. Well that's not necessarily the case. Zoning districts are different, they have different context. The square is certainly much different in terms of regulating development there than it is out by 35 or 288 in the loop. So we need to take those individual contexts and apply standards that are tailored uniquely. Increased flexibility. It's hard to get projects approved in Denton. Now Scott the new planning director has made a lot of cultural changes internally that have made things smoother. You will continue to see those moving forward. The DDC can actually be updated to allow for more flexibility. Not at the expense of neighborhoods which are important to Denton. Don't chip away at that fabric but allow more flexibility. Allow development to be creative and give you projects that you need and want. Finally is just to coordinate this project which is a big undertaking but it's not everything. You've got engineering standards, you have wastewater standards, you have electric standards. A lot of things that live outside of the code that have been updated in the last couple of years and we want to make sure that we're cross-referencing those but certainly not being inconsistent with them. So that was one of the goals of the projects. Diving right into the first topic. Gonna start with landscaping, screening, buffering and fences. How good does it have to be? How much do we need? And just showing some images to get your your minds going. The juice is flowing on why landscaping is important. We talked about buffers in the landscaping standards. How we address incompatible land uses. If I'm residential next to non- residential, there's an incompatibility there that's not impossible and that should be allowed but with certain parameters and buffers are one way to do that. How we think about loading areas, screening areas, making sure that the trash refuse is enclosed so that not everybody has to look at it and driving around the city you see a lot of dumpsters just out there in the open. We can prevent that in the future. And then what happens with a complete and total lack of landscaping? You end up with a non-desirable result. Not a friendly place to walk. Not much better to even drive in that scenario. So how do we beaut ify things while also providing good landscaping? We'll jump right into the summary of changes and this is how each of the topics is going to work. We'll get your thoughts going. We'll share some of the summary of changes, the big changes , and then take any questions that you have on that topic. So well I do want to mention though we need to get through all of the topics. So we'll take a few questions on each topic but at some point I'm gonna kick the conversation to the next and then at the end for the remaining time that we have with you we can revisit each of these individual topics. Landscaping. Alternative landscaping plan option. We say this right up front. We know that no matter how good we draft a code and we've drafted a lot of codes somebody's gonna come to you with a project that is gonna be unique. It's going to have a certain set of site conditions that are different than other properties in Dent on. So how do we take care of that? Well you don't want to require a public hearing where everything gets hashed out and neighborhoods have to get involved. This is an opportunity to talk to the director and to say look I 've got unique conditions here. I can't meet the black and white letter of the landscaping standard. Here's what I can do that's an equal benefit to the city that still meets the intent of the code but gives us a little bit of wiggle room because I've got utilities where you want me to plant trees. I can 't do that. They won't survive. So this is a new procedure. It's a new option. You 'll see a lot of flexible alternatives throughout the development standards that say alternatives may be allowed where the director approves them or shall comply to the maximum extent practicable. That's less than feasible. It's saying this just doesn't make good common sense to require you to do that on this particular property. Another important change to landscaping is how the buffers work. Right now you do require buffers between incompatible uses but it's very rigid in the term in the the types of buffers that you can provide. Instead we have proposed an optional point system that allow it you have to reach a certain point total for a buffer. I'll use the earlier example single-family residential. If I want to develop industrial next to an existing single-family residential neighborhood I need to earn 50 points in a buffer and then there's another table page 56 of your draft shows you how you can earn those points. You're not decreasing the quality of the buffer by giving them options for points. You're just saying you earn the points however you want to a stone wall gets you more points trees get you more points . You keep adding up those options until you've reached 50. Now if I'm single- family and I want to build next to another single-family you don't have to do a buffer. That just doesn't make sense right we want to protect things from more intense uses. The last one I'll mention here in the landscaping then we 'll get into some some questions about this one is low impact development. Green infrastructure rather than requiring everything to be in pipes and piped infrastructure and putting downspouts directly into pipes. How could we run water across a property to actually improve the water quality to require less piped infrastructure? This still needs some working out with coordinating with the engineering department making sure that we can actually do all of these things but I'll mention Denton is very proud of and should be to be a silver-servant certified I swim for stormwater management city. That's important in terms of thinking about how you treat and move water across the site sustainably. We have given you options to do green infrastructure not mandates saying you can do these things where it makes sense where it's allowed by drainage and other departments within the city. Those are the three the big three for landscaping. I'll open it up to questions before we move to the next topic. Commissioner Beck. Explain rain garden just for clarification I'm not familiar with that I understand the other things you're talking about there what are we looking at and what's a rain garden? Rain garden also known as a bioretention facility. These are ways of planting certain water loving plants and natural organic materials into a depression area that actually captures the water and holds it for a short period of time. They can be inundated by water when a big rainstorm comes and hold that water without it killing the plants without it shifting landscaping material all across the site it can hold the water improve the quality of the water and then release it slowly into the into the ground or across the site. When these they have the option to do these they're not mandated they have the option so correct when they choose whatever they choose to do it'll still will still come before the P&Z and we'll look at what they've got and could we question why they chose one option over the other is that something that the P&Z will see is that something the director will it's a great question from it. Commissioner Beck a lot of this came out of the procedures that we talked about last month. Some applications warrant a public hearing because they're complex they're big they mean a lot your phone's been ringing off the hook you're gonna need a public hearing some projects require City Council approval some come to the Commission a lot of simple projects especially now with a more straightforward and transparent code a lot of decisions can just be made at the staff level. If you've already told the community this site is appropriate for a Taco Bell fast food restaurant on a site and I'm coming to you with the Taco Bell what's there to talk about at a public hearing right so it's a matter of staff being able and the Planning Commission being able to review did they meet the code do they have enough trees did they get enough points for buffers if they're providing LID or green infrastructure options they can question it you can question it but are they meeting all of the requirements of the city? Right okay but it is something we can review absolutely okay thank you Commissioner Smith. Thank you Chair. On the the landscape buffers and the ability to direct to approve alternates on the from the director standpoint yeah so what to what level are they allowed to approve those alternates essentially what there's got to be some sort of threshold that's put into there is that back whenever we were talking procedures last the last module I mean they can prove alternates if you give that if you give that unilateral decision that yeah you can you can prove those alternates at what point does it stop and say well actually that probably should come in front of a public hearing or item for individual consideration or something like that. Very good question and it does relate partially to what we talked about last month but that's a different than what I've talked about today. Last month we presented minor modifications and those allow numeric standards to change a numeric change in the setback requirements or the building height requirements up to a certain percentage. There we can apply very strict thresholds to say look director we want you to be able to approve up to a this amount anything above that is too much it needs to come to the Planning Commission or to City Council. In this case the alternative actually builds in additional approval criteria. First of all we lay out a through H parameters under which the director has the authority to even consider other other alternatives including utilities on the site that are challenging including infill or redevelopment properties. This is page 53 of the draft alternative landscaping and so a lot of these features replace the alternative development plan procedure that you're used to now. That's fine we have it currently in place I'll look over page 53 and I'll ask more questions at the end just for the sake of time. Okay. As you referenced earlier one thing I did have asked question on the what is your pedagogy to the point minimum on the the buffering set the standards on the point based system. Yeah you're looking through that on page 56 it's ten point twenty point type stuff where's the pedagogy come from say this is our this is the reason why we chose this point this reason why we assigned these certain buffers these certain points. Yeah where did that come from? Great question so we had to come up with a system. Yeah. One way of doing that was being very thoughtful about what 's worth twice as much than something else. Okay. And then what's worth twice as much as even that is and so our first step was rather than looking at the buffer points scale for how much things are worth how much should be required between the different types of uses residential versus industrial we knew right away that you require the most buffer points regardless of how much points those are they should be the biggest number you have to hit. For coming up with the point totals we did use some methodology and we've looked at other examples and we've looked at a lot of the other codes that we've written it comes down to a fence is not a very big deal it's not hard to do but it is a good buffer tool so that's worth ten points you want to plant some shrubs in the landscape buffer shrubs are great not the best buffering tool because you can walk over and step through and look through shrubs those are worth five points you build a taller masonry wall that's gonna get you 20 points because it does a better job meeting the intent of this section of the code. So in this specifically did you look at our current you look at our current code our current buffer rules yes and essentially line up those points to kind of okay currently this is what it is now essentially this is amicable this point system is amicable so we're not just choosing these points out of thin air randomly assigning masonry walls 20 because it feels like a 20 and wooden fences get a 10 and you know what I actually like you know the I like chain link fences so I 'm actually give them seven instead of five that kind of crap we're not choosing stuff out of thin air. You said the secret word of the day. It's a great question I'll respond in the following way we don't pull this stuff out of thin air it's not willy-nilly it is based on some of your current standards we did make some changes we have to land somewhere to get a draft that's out there for review it's not science I will put it to that you're you're not going to find a study that says no it should be worth seven and a half points you are you're wrong so at some point we land on thresholds the same be told for what types of projects you require expansions of an existing property to to comply with the code we picked 25 percent because it's a good starting point. If I say I'm not bogging people down I think I'll relinqu ish my mic. Any other questions on this section? That's a fun one. Okay . Well that was easy. Move forward. Okay. Parking and loading you know what I like parking and loading but not as much as Jim so I'm gonna have Jim come up and present this please. All right parking and loading so we made a lot of changes to this section based on the feedback that we heard from everyone that we spoke to in our previous visits. This is a quick overview just like landsca ping summary of changes as we've created a new parking table that matches the land use types from the first set of material that we delivered with the parking standards so every use that's allowed in the city has a corresponding parking standard so there's no question of well what how much parking do I need well look in the table because it's there so that's new and that's really intended to make it easy for everybody to understand exactly what's required without having a lot of question marks there. We revised the parking and loading requirements to reflect parking trends both nationally and in here in Texas so a lot of times parking standards get outdated because things change you get uber and Lyft and autonomous vehicles and things like that and parking standards will continue to evolve over time so we've updated those to reflect current trends and then another big change is the the maximum so right now and it's it's fairly unusual to have a minimum requirement and a maximum requirement that are the same and that's that's currently what Denton has so we've adjusted the maximum to be 125% of the required minimum so for example if you have a restaurant that needs a hundred parking stalls hundred but you can't provide more than 125 parking stalls and we've also introduced a whole suite of alternatives just like landscaping we've made the parking a lot more flexible to say these are the standards but there's ways you can adjust them if you're close to a fixed transit station you can adjust the parking minimum by 25 percent if you're if you have shared parking with another use you can adjust the parking minimum by a certain number so we've introduced a number of those alternatives again to make it to make it address the context of where the development is the the next bullet there we've introduced a discretionary parking requirements with the demand study so there are some land uses that there's there's no way to predict how much parking you'll need let's say let me find an example here so one example is like an electric substation is there parking required for that so we've we've drafted something to say that based on a demand study the director can determine how much parking is required so another example is like a sanitary landfill you know that that use can vary drastically we've also adjusted the loading loading and unloading standards so in today's day and age you get a lot more frequent deliveries in smaller vehicles back 20 30 years ago it was pretty common to have a big semi come and unload a load every one or two weeks now you see almost daily deliveries with smaller vehicles so we've we've exempted small buildings less than 10,000 square feet from having to provide a loading dock on site anything more than that we do have loading standards based on the size of the structure commissioner back thank you chair question on that when you go downtown now I'm assuming this refers to areas around the square then yeah anywhere in the city okay what we usually see down there and I can understand small trucks like ups trucks and stuff like that but every once in a while there will be a semi parked in one lane on the square so are we gonna the new rules going to establish that they have to be the smaller vehicles that they won't allow these big semis has that been taken in consideration no so that the DDC will will just write the rules for what what a developer has to provide on a site if they're building something or changing something on the property so again this applies to two buildings that are smaller than 10,000 square feet which is relatively small or commercial use but if you've got a 40 foot trailer and they're not always 40 foot but they're the long trader types they take up several parking places they have to move stuff around to get to it takes a lot longer for them to get their product out and into the store so that's not gonna change then they're they 're not gonna be restricted right okay okay thank you and then to to move down here we've also increased flexibility with parking with exemptions so in the new MD zone that the mixed-use downtown core zone we've exempted any property from having to provide the minimum parking it's difficult to do that in a downtown because if if you require parking then you have a lot of surface parking and you no longer have a downtown or you require parking and no one can do anything because there's not enough space to park cars so in the MDs district we've said just build your product and if it doesn 't work then pick a different product but we're not going to say that you have to provide this this many parking stalls in the downtown and then the last bullet is we've exempted any property any non-residential use on a lot less than five thousand square feet from having to provide parking and that's pretty small five thousand square foot lot is is small but if you have a tiny insurance agency that has a three thousand square foot lot we're not going to require them to provide parking for that use in the city so with that are there questions on parking and loading and yes commissioner Smith a chair roughly how much did you change or give the ability for us to change the minimum downwards if we've also increased the maximum of 25% just doing this in search of being able to how much how much flexibility will this Commission and the City Council in the future have to start eliminating unnecessary parking where I think it's it probably exists now yeah so the the adjustment to the minimums we've already done that in the table so we've already reduced what you currently require in many cases lower than what it is now would you say it's I'm just looking for generalities here is it you say you you you grossly reduce the minimum in comparison to what we currently have we looked at each you specifically so we didn't just say we're gonna reduce everything by 20% sure but we looked at it all individually I know for retail for example right now you guys require one stall per 350 square feet we made that one stall per 300 okay or no it was the reverse so right now you require one per 300 we made it one per 350 and then with the alternatives we allow the alternatives to reduce the parking so for example if you have shared parking off-site parking if you're proximate to transit if you provide affordable housing you can reduce the the number of parking up to 50% cumulatively so for example on street parking you can reduce the percentage by on a one-to-one ratio so if you have four spaces in front of your building you can take four spaces off the off-site parking required proximate to transit you can reduce up to 25% and you can combine all those things to reduce it up to 50% just trying to get an overall feel for it yes we've increased things we did it was bad that we had our minimum our maximum the same that's pretty restrictive it's good to know that we have the ability to to increase by 25% but I wanted to know on a general level how much flexibility have we given to the minimums it seems like the revisions gonna allow for for lower smaller minimums that are right are gonna go down it seems like on an overall judgment they're all gonna go down then you allow for alternatives to even decrease even more in certain scenarios right that's right perfect that's what we want we don't want to have to have builders have to expend more for parking that's unnecessary for a certain site because of very simple logic that we can decide upon as a commission yeah and we think I mean a huge factor in this is the market I mean people developers aren't gonna build stuff that isn't gonna work so it's a lot of times it's to say get out of the way of good development and just let them do their thing and then where the city's interested is when we'll step in and say okay we want to address traffic concerns safety concerns things like that and that's where we have the minimums sure and just the second question I was just as we 're doing a city-wide rezone with this with this update if a you know a business is you know these new parking minimums and maximums are applied a business is operating then they go through a change where they need to come back in front of us for a reapproval for whatever whatever use whatever it is they would then be allowed within the way this is written the way we 're update the DDC they would then be allowed to change their parking lot structure if they're I'll say they're asking for a rezone or they're doing a replat or something like that they would that would allow us to then also change with their current standing minimums and maximums are for their parking depending upon whatever project they're wanting to build or do yeah so at the beginning of the parking section on page 85 and 86 there's applicability standards to say in what scenario do you have to essentially comply with these standards so there you have standards for new development any new development in the city is gonna have to comply with these standards once they're adopted expansions and enlargements under some cases you'll have to comply others you may not depends on the scale of what you're doing and then we did have in here that the entire site complies if you're adding or expanding one or more structures that requires a specific use permit so that would be something that the Planning Commission and the council would review so that could trigger them to say okay if you want to have this use on the property you have to bring your whole site into compliance with parking works thank you other questions I'll just make a comment I think this is a huge cleanup this has been a an issue in our city for a long long time and I've sat there with clients making decisions on where they're gonna locate their business whether they can park it or not because the use change from office to medical or whatever and the ability of property owners or business owners to be able to determine how to park their business and give them the ability to do that I think is a huge cleanup and I think it will make some good changes in our city on places that need to be renewed but have been overlooked because you can't park them and so you can 't go put a new business there because you can't make the parking standards and so I think this is a I would just applaud you I think this is a very good change for our city any other questions on this side item all right forward so we'll jump into site and building design so right now this this topic really covers a lot of things how buildings are oriented on a site the level of quality for the building how the pedestrians and vehicles interact with the site this this section also addresses wall articulation you can see here this is an example of not very good articulation so really this this section our approach was to say let's write rules to rule out all the bad players and encourage designers and architects and developers to be creative and to create projects that they think will contribute to Denton and as Tarek said there's a lot of great stuff already here and we use that as a baseline to say these are the projects that are working well and that people love here let's write the standards to allow those types of buildings but to not be too strict to say you have to do this this and this to where it eliminates creativity and flexibility so this section also addresses visual interest in relief this is an example of maybe what a mixed-use district might look like and then architectural features your downtown district is very different than other areas of the city and there may be more stringent architectural design standards or guidelines for the downtown area than there would be elsewhere in the city so we've really looked at this on a context approach to say what's appropriate in this area something in the industrial park maybe we don't care as much as it is here downtown so as far as an overview the organization of this section is quite different than what you have now we start with single-family duplex and townhome standards those are different than multifamily which are different than non-residential and mixed-use and then finally the MN and MD districts for the mixed-use districts so each tier has its own set of standards that apply to those areas in those contexts so as you read through the draft you'll see that and then other things that this chapter addresses are site design and orientation like I said it's common for multifamily projects to have several buildings on one site how should those buildings be organized and placed so that it makes the most sense for both the pedestrian the developers the city to achieve their goals the mass and form of buildings that brings us back to the articulation how frequently should you have a recess or some articulation in a wall so that you don't have these blank walls along important streets in Denton architectural variety building materials is masonry required how much is metal allowed how much and then transparency in windows it's important to be able to both see in and out of buildings for visual interest but also just from a functional standpoint of the structure itself so some key changes we've introduced alternative standards for infill development and higher quality design again it's really tough to have a one size fits all so infill projects can be very challenging and it may not be practical to comply black and white with with the letter of the law so we've allowed for alternative designs to say okay you can get creative and propose something that that exceeds the code requirements new standards for multifamily building developments so again how are those buildings oriented on the site you have common gathering space courtyards are you framing the corner of the intersection things like that and then new specific standards for the MN and MD districts so here's an example 60% of the street frontage shall have buildings within 10 feet of the front lot line in the MN or MD zones and those zones are pedestrian oriented districts so you want to have buildings closer to the street to provide visual interest people are walking so it's a lot easier to access the buildings things like that so that's a quick overview of site and building design if you have additional questions or comments we're making record time continue yeah we're doing well okay so exterior lighting so this is the last topic that will that will dress the the code right now is really doesn't really address lighting in detail so we've added really general basic standards to say that if you do provide lighting on your site have it be downcast don't shed light onto your neighboring properties so that someone trying to sleep at night doesn't have this glaring bright window shine or light shining through their window and because we're requiring a lot more pedestrian facility sidewalks pathways they we want them to be lit so that they're safe so we've included some really basic standards to say those pedestrian areas should be lit with with lighting no more than 16 feet tall to relate to the scale of a person they should be full cut off downcast fixtures and that they should be required along internal sidewalks and paths and then for parking area lighting we've introduced some standards saying there shouldn't be taller than 25 feet and again they should be downcast and that light shouldn't spill on neighboring properties more than one foot candle at the property line which is something that the code enforcement can can actually go out and measure with an instrument so with that there are questions on lighting Commissioner Sullivan so we don't have that standard in the current ordinance that's something that the that the developer would decide or the the staff would say listen you have you need more than just one light on this pathway because it only lights this one area and a lot of places require a photometric lighting plan to show how much light is going to be cast on the site and that's something that the staff can include in their administrative manual that they're drafting is if that would be required so that's something that the staff can work out internally to say how much lighting is required we just say if you provide lighting these are the general standards it shouldn't be taller than this on the site in commercial and non-residential lighting we do specify in parking lots that the average illuminance values in that parking lot shall be at least two foot candles which is a standard for measuring the amount of light downcast we say it can't go over one at the property line so you're not creating a nuisance issue but it's got to be at least two in the parking area that's just for basic safety it's up to you how you get to that two foot candles in an even distribution also there are a lot of places where in the evening it may be well lit on the main street but then when you want to turn you can't even see that you know where the curb is because there's no light you know that you can't see and then for pedestrians it's hard to see pedestrians and so what's you know is there a an amount of light that should be well all those places so people don't get hurt it's an excellent point I will tell you our method here was to take a relatively light touch primarily because you don't really regulate light much now we stepped it up a notch to get you to have some minimal regulations oftentimes communities want some standards for crime prevention and environmental design and that's kind of what you're getting at how much light is too much light and if you have too much light in one space and not enough light over here it's almost blinding once you exit the well-lit area you can't see pedestrians you can't see somebody on the bike and also you create opportunities for criminal activity if it's not a better distribution of light we can explore some of that if we get that type of direction we have drafted those types of standards before and we're we're happy to bring something before you on that anything else on lighting okay so subdivisions so this is sub chapter 7 of the draft there this is a table of contents for what's included in that subchapter so there's a purpose statement the applicability when when do these standards apply subdivision design standards and then improvement standards so we'll walk through just a few changes there we've we've introduced new flag lot standards in the city I'm sure you all are aware of what a flag lot is but those those standards are really minimal right now so we've enhanced those to make it clear as to when when these are allowed and exactly how you would design flag lots and then a new tool that we've introduced is a cluster subdivision tool and this allows flexibility and lot design and layout if if the developer protects sensitive lands and or open areas so let's say you have a site near a riparian area maybe it's a hundred acre site but really only 20 to 30 acres is developable the developer can propose a cluster subdivision to consolidate or cluster the development into one area of the site and and preserve the remainder of the site through either an easement or deed restriction or some other way to protect it in perpet uity and that would then open the door to smaller lot sizes to smaller setbacks essentially you're you're allowing more density for preserving open areas in the city and a lot of communities are doing this now especially in the western areas with hazard mitigation if you have a very high wildfire area you can preserve those areas and push the development away into other portions of the site and you're not you're not losing the density that you would have had otherwise but you're clustering it into a different area so Commissioner Smith saying you're reducing the setbacks you're making it more dense do you have an idea of how much yes scale what ratio that is to do that yeah so page 133 there's a table that says what the cluster subdivision standards would be so the first you need at least three acres to do a cluster subdivision so there's a minimum there there's a block length you have to have at least a block length of six no more than 600 feet your lot size can be reduced to 2,500 square feet if you're doing a cluster subdivision your lot width can be up to 20 feet and then your setbacks are outlined there as well so so we do set parameters and and again this is a draft I mean these numbers can be tweaked to reflect what's what's best for Denton but the idea is to say that the city will benefit more if you preserve this area that's sensitive then we so it's a trade -off you say if you preserve that area will allow you to have a smaller lots to to make the project pencil essentially I'll make a comment while we're stopped here on cluster subdivision I think it's a great idea we've talked about it numerous times here at before this Commission I guess an ask would be is if you are looking at the traffic utility design standards to see if these are possible because that's always been the problem in the past is there 's not enough flexibility in our street designs our utility designs to be able to do those to meet the curves the maximum grades and those types of things so I just point that out while you all are reviewing this and if we're going to put it in the DDC here may want to look and talk with engineering about if if somebody does want to do these is there any flexibility that we have in our engineering requirements to make it possible yeah and that 's a great point I mean we want to make sure if this is an available option that it's viable that people can actually do it that's why it hasn't been done today so Commissioner Beck thank you chair on a lot with says and these are minimum I understand that it's got a 20-foot minimum that's the width of my garage down here in the foot note it says this can be discussed to reduce even further so that just seems unreasonable how do you develop well yeah and that that may be a townhome product where you have a townhouse that's 20 to 30 feet but again that's the minimum and the developer is not going to create a subdivision that he can't build a product that to sell so like I said earlier we want to we want to get out of their way to say okay if you can make it work and sell something that meets all the other standards of the code go for it you know get creative but we're not going to say you can't do something if you can I don't know just in seeing feasible 20 feet I don't know it's small really okay it's small but 10 ohms okay I didn't want to set a standard that right with something that would move and they're fluid I mean like I said that all this stuff is up for discussion we can change it and if 30 feet or 40 feet is more appropriate but that it's important to strike a balance between what's going to be an incentive to do this and what's what's not okay I would just add to your question is if you don't give the flexibility you certainly don't aren't allowed to leave areas undisturbed if you're gonna say they have to be 50 foot minimum like a regular lot then there's no incentive to try to preserve the areas where you can get a density trade-off to say I'm gonna leave these areas undisturbed and in return I'm gonna be able to put and transfer that density to another area and have a smaller lot size to be able to accomplish you know the density part that that's where that is no I agree I you know I wouldn't want things a whole lot bigger but it just seems like 20 feet was so small but if you're saying that's a feasible it'd be a town home I don't see it being a single-family rather that didn't surprise me but I'll take your word for it because you do this for thank you yeah and again like I said it's striking that balance and in other communities we found that this type of approach really helps home values because once you have common open area and green space as part of your subdivision depending on how you lay out the design it's really an amenity for people to know that that area is preserved it's never going to be developed and it's a great amenity for folks so we just wanted to open the door to say this this is an option indent and if you want to do that you can there's standards you have to meet but we're not going to tell you no if you can make it work Commissioner Sullivan thank you I've never heard the term cluster subdivision is this the same thing as a zero lot line or a garden home that type of an area or what's no that the idea of a cluster setback on the sides I mean that's almost Eve Eve you know yeah so that the term cluster subdivision comes from it again looking at a whole side and laying it out as if as you would developing the entire thing as a subdivision and then taking that same number of houses and clustering them into one small area of the site and preserving everything else so that's where the term comes from and and one way to do that is to offer smaller lot sizes smaller set backs so the result may be smaller setbacks not zero lot line development but you may definitely have homes that are closer to the five feet what's the difference between that and a zero lot line where that's pretty much what you have is it well you have ten feet wrong on that or you know you'd have ten feet between buildings if each building had five feet or they'd be touching I mean that's that would be the difference and it's man oh there's I think it's called Villa of Corinth or something over in Corinth not didn't that the houses are narrow I don't not ten feet but they're in our twenty but they're narrow they 're deep and they've got a very small side yard that they share and so and that 's more of a what I would consider a zero lot line as opposed to having a ten foot setback on the sides I mean I'm just trying to get the idea of what a cluster or subdivision would look like so I I just want to clarify a couple of points on setbacks versus zero lot line versus cluster subdivision in cluster subdivision we are only talking about the lot don't picture a product on that lot the idea is that you can do just as many lots on the entire project site that you otherwise could but they're going to be much smaller than they they would in a traditional subdivision that captures the the cluster portion of it put more of your lots over there and they can be smaller that's fine and your setbacks might be reduced now for the product types you might be able to do a single family detached home if you get enough wiggle room on those setbacks it would be very skinny and narrow but I'm seeing products come out of production home builders that are that narrow for attached products we address this not in the cluster subdivision but rather in that first piece of the code on the zoning districts where we talk about how lot lines are measured how setbacks are measured if you're building an attached product like a town home you're sharing a common wall you don't have to meet the side setback obviously because your building is connected to the one next door to it so that would be the case you could do that product in a cluster subdivision and not have to meet that setback requirement but then would you run into the density problem that we've run into many times where you've got a lot of people a lot of cars and no place to put the cars there's still got a you still got to meet the parking requirements yeah nothing in cluster subdivision says you don't have to meet the parking requirements however we have introduced a new type of parking organization called an auto court which is actually within the cluster subdivision regulations that say all right if you're gonna organize a development where you've got a lot more people living closer together than a traditional single-family detached neighborhood you can have a shared auto court where everybody's parking over there they access that from an alley or something and then they walk to their homes that very short short walk patio homes cottage homes things like that so the main concept here is try to get out of the way of somebody doing some more creative missing middle housing types people are willing to live in much different places than they were 20 years ago and we need to be flexible for those types of products where appropriate thank you Mr. Sanchez you got your microphone on but it was getting that's how I see it it just gives you different options so that you can still be able to protect the environment and I think that's what you're saying you have all different options within that that smaller area to develop and I'm not sure that to the chairman's point it's never been used before here in Denton it's actually has not been used a lot in Texas communities in general based on ETJ requirements and lots of different reasons however you make the incentive strong enough to say all right we're willing to get out of the way on some of these stricter standards eventually you're gonna see one eventually you'll see some benefit that doesn't mean this is the only way to protect those sensitive areas you you have other ways of doing so Commissioner Smith thank you sure question I had early about the calculation of the density and all like stuff what sizes width all that good stuff great awesome if what I'm trying to I guess what's trying to ask earlier was this if that area and my maybe it maybe I'm screwed up because he's really would be a PD zone at that point in time wouldn't it wouldn 't be a with this if you're talking about let's say it's a it's a six six lots per yeah six six units six building units per acre type area and that's the subdivision that we've got now and we're clustering does that mean that you still have to meet the dwelling unit requirement for the hundred hundred acre area but now you need to put all your unit requirement that can't go any more than what's already there but now it has to be done in a 30 unit area and we're removing some of the restrictions that normally would be there so that you can meet that unit that unit area require them on the zoning so that question makes sense because it didn't make sense to me so I jumbled my words it does make sense I knew what you were hinting at there and you got there so we do not say by district thou shall not exceed the following dwelling units per acre rather there are other parameters to get you there through building height through setback requirements through building coverage requirements your plan says an awful lot about density so it gets into the which zoning districts are appropriate where in the city now using a cluster subdiv ision the idea does not increase your density it shifts all of your lots to a small so that smaller portion taken in and of itself might have a higher density than otherwise allowed but the site in totality does not correct and in fact in order for a cluster subdivision to work you have to guarantee in perpet uity that it won't be subdivided again so there's parameters in here that say you got to sign the dotted line that says no so I'm gonna use and I'm gonna use current coding words because that's just what no now so on an nr4 area and a hundred acres you're saying there could be 400 units on this hundred acre area this cluster subdivision we're gonna now we're gonna reduce it by let's go down to 25 acres instead of 100 acres so you still can have at most 400 units but that for you it's could be in a 25 acre area and the other 75 acres in perpetuity can never have a dwelling unit on it as well as what this is this is what this this cluster division yeah I'm getting the concept now keep in mind they still have to meet all the other standards so yeah and to keep in mind that they still have to meet all the other standards so as if they can make it work then yeah they can do up to the 400 units feasibility is a whole different standard just wanted to know the actual concept of it but thank you yeah and it's and it's also important to note that it's a lot cheaper for developers not to have to build all the infrastructure over a hundred acre site I mean if you can consolidate all your costs and resources into one area maybe the quality of the product will be higher because they have funds to allocate more to design and open space for things like that it's not required but it's possible that could happen so for those that are interested I did a subdivision like that here in the city of Denton it's over on the corner of El Paseo and Santa Monica it's on the southeast corner a little shadow Brook Village and that's probably as close as I can think of to what we're talking about here very small eight lots of people walking the walk before it was even caught by that's right great well any other any other questions on subdivision okay so the the last part of our presentation is next steps and then we're going to talk a little bit about the zoning map process that's that's currently underway and that's going to get really going here in the next month or so so next steps for as Tarek said we're making a consolidated draft so we've drafted all three parts of the code and now it's time to knit them all together and have one big document with everything in it and that's what the consolidated draft is so there's a date here that says comments for the consolidated draft by April 26th the consolidated draft is going to get delivered sometime in May so if you have comments that you want in the consolidated draft we need those soon there's still more opportunities to comment after the consolidated draft but that's that's the deadline for that document you can submit comments on the website you see the URL there you can email comments to planning staff PZ at City of Den you can call the staff there's a lot of ways you can do that now the zoning map process is is directly related to the D DC update we have this new lineup of districts they have to be mapped on somewhere in the city if they're not on the map they don't apply and all these standards we've written don't matter so the the mapping process is currently underway there's a web page you can see there a screenshot of that that staff has prepared on the right hand side there's a link that will take you to an interactive map where you can click on any property in the city and it pulls up a window to say this is your existing zoning there's a link there to prove that you can click on to say okay what are my standards now and then there's a line there for the draft zoning so this is what we want the zoning or what we've proposed the zoning to be changed to and then you can click there and it will direct you to the drafts that we've that we've created to correlate those standards so this is a tool available to anybody in the city we really encourage you to use it it's really helpful staffs done a great job of making this interactive and user-friendly you can see here there's a there's a comment a section of the page if you just scroll down you can put your name your address and then here you see there's a zig existing zoning and preferred zoning and then you can say you agree you disagree and then there's a comment box so this is the opportunity for any resident in the city to say we think you got it wrong this is why we think you got it right this is why and that the city is going to start having a lot of feedback from the public this is a list of public open houses for just the zoning map process the first ones on Monday and then there's a series of them through May so attend these give your input this is a lot easier to to make your case for a zone change that you've always wanted without having to go through a big arduous process you just talk to staff submit a card and it may show up on the map so get involved there's plenty of opportunities to do that here in the city so with that are there any other questions or comments on anything that we've covered Commissioner Sullivan thank you chair I've got a couple questions regarding traffic in six point eight point nine talks about traffic calming devices it talks about the fact that they are put in at the same time as the street is there no allowance for those to be added at a later date and under certain you know what conditions could they be added yeah so do you have a page number for that reference page 69 yeah so traffic sorry what was your question about it well it gives a you know a way to add those at the time the street yes is there a way to put those in after the fact in other words the street is longer more you know kids or screwball adults driving higher speeds and so we want to slow them down yeah to put you know the bumps in their bump outs and planners and meetings I'm gonna defer to Scott yeah so for the for everybody's benefit traffic calming devices things within the public right-of-way or the street generally that slow down traffic they can be as simple as bumping out the curb at an intersection things that visually to a driver make them feel constrained on street parking on both sides of the street is actually a traffic calming device because it seems constrained I'm not going to drive as fast the question before us you know obviously you want those things to happen while you're designing and putting in the infrastructure how do we retro fit existing development as development occurs it's challenging especially on infill you get one person in the middle of the block who's doing a redevelopment project are they required to calm that particular street if it doesn't exist probably not and so the question is what are are there public private partnerships are there business improvement improvement districts that want to pony up and address certain blocks are there neighborhoods that organize but I think there are engineering standards that would allow that to happen I'm just not sure how we would coordinate that with the DDC that's what why Scott's up here well and another piece of that is it that's really in our traffic criteria manuals and ultimately is gonna be the traffic engineer and and I think where this started and that's why I asked Tark to explain traffic calming devices when we think of speed bumps that is the last resort or ultimately is really not going to happen so excuse me our trucks yeah yeah it's it's just it's one of those issues so that's the first thing that people think of of traffic calming devices the intent of the code really is talking about bulb outs and where it is that you changed the design of the street to calm traffic and and so that's the intent of that rather than trying to come back and do that but there's so so it's mentioned in the area of new development but not in existing development correct is that the case that yes and and ultimately unless there's a street redesign then we're probably not going to achieve traffic calming devices and that can be done any number of ways through signals roundabouts etc even in existing where it is if we have adequate right away or to do some other things okay along the same lines on page 73 goes into vehicle trips and less than a hundred daily trips and a hundred to a thousand daily vehicle trips and blah blah blah and my question is we've again something that we've had to deal with on a regular basis is that we have a development going in there is an you know a street that's designated whatever and that means that there can be X number of thousands of cars going on that street so the question is well how many vehicles do we have we don't know how many vehicles going to be coming on the new development into that street we don't know so what's the point of having these numbers here if our traffic people don't know on a regular basis how many cars go up and down Ryan Road and how many cars going to be added to that with the development off of Ryan Road and so is there any place in this new stuff that's going to give us that information or require that to be done before development is put in yes and yes so the next page which is six point eight point nine speaks to a T IA or some developments may be as simple as just an analysis a basic analysis of what that that development is going to generate in trips what we're attempting to do on the front side of the model is is have at least an evaluation of what it is that that that impact is going to be of the development and then what we have for infrastructure today or what it may cause to the future so absolutely we have that and we're requesting that of developers when it is that we see that impact so we try to do a pre-development meeting before we get to this point to say it looks as if it appears as if this is going to have an impact these are the documents that we'd like to see before and as we go through the design phase of this so that way we're not suggesting that they build this first street when they may need this first street well that's all really good however at what point is the city required to do something along the same lines again if a developments coming in off Orion Road and the city has never done a traffic survey to know how many cars go up and down Ryan Road how's that going to impact it or if you're going down up and down Hickory or Bonnie Bray I mean there's number of streets that are in terrible condition and nobody knows how many cars travel on them because nobody puts out the cord or the whatever pick out the cars to then say this is what needs to be done and we can't add development on this street until those things are done and we're actually in the process of doing that so our city engineer through through this summer and really in alignment with this we're looking at evaluating all of those traffic patterns because we know that that we have development that that is ultimately ending up in places that we may not have planned to the past so are we putting our capital dollars in the right direction so then we can have that that master plan as how it is that we look at where we're gonna go what we're going to do so we actually are doing that I think they've done some preliminary work already and they have intentions of either through an RFP process having that done as well as we're gonna collect this on individual developments so to the past we may not have done this comprehensively today we are so we're looking a little broader view of what's what's happening where it's happening and then how it's going to impact the city overall thank you yes sir anybody else I've got one I was just reading here in between on page 135 on C one private streets a this has been the policy in the city of Denton for as long as I can remember that all gated communities have to be private streets yeah those private streets have to be put in to city standards and they have to be inspected and they're done just like a city street so the question is is it not possibility to have some discussion about those streets being public rather than private because when I've done some of this stuff before private street subdivisions it's a big hindrance to people the possible cost to do those streets but there's a big demand for people that would like to live in a gated community utterly people single people they go to apartments with the big fences around them but they'd rather have a home but they want the security portion however people don't develop those very often because streets all have to be private and HOA with possibly big fees so the confusion and question I've always had it if you have to put it into city standards why can't it be a public street and it may be an egress issue and that might be something legal has to talk about but it's just something to throw on the table for discussion if there's some consideration for those to be public streets in a gated community to meet a need in our community that typically is not addressed because of those issues we had one here before us within the last 30 60 days I don't say it's the villas of piney something that's back in there behind it would bank it's not gated but it's private streets big issue between them and development to trying to go to the east of them so just want to throw that out is we're talking about that if that's something that's can be further discussed long question no it you Chairman you have well articulated the trade-offs between doing gated community development and traditional community development and there are trade-offs and that's a big one for you but what is the one thing that maintains a gated community status as being a gated community it's the ability to go in and out of it and when that gate is removed ultimately at some point and streets are ultimately dedicated back to the city it'd be nice if those streets were built to city standards and that is they are built to city yeah they are and they're continued to be required to do that the question is why why can't the city help foot the bill for some of that right and and and no potentially share some of the ownership and well that I think the real issue is probably a legal issue is if it's a public street it has to be open to the public versus just the people that have the code to the access gate and that may be the issue but I know the streets and all the utilities are put into city standards but it's it's a hindrance to market those properties and try to do those to people when you say it's a private street and the question is well when we have to redo the street in 20 years and it costs a hundred thousand dollars who has to pay for that and it's the people that live in there because it's a private street right so the question just to throw out for discussion is if there's a possibility that instead of them always having to be a private street if they can truly be a public street then the HOA dues that are in those can be much more reasonable and there are more market option for people to look at versus gosh am I gonna have ten thousand dollars or five thousand dollars 20 years from now when it comes time to redo the streets Victor was itching to respond to that question but I think the reality is is if it's private it's private I mean that's the bottom line and and where that's at in the law I don't know but we absolutely have captured the comment and we can we can follow up thanks for letting me make the comment thank you for anything commissioner Sullivan just to add to your point I mean it's kind of like the street lights the builder comes in they've got a certain street light they could put in they put the street out in and then they deed it over to the city and that's the city street light one I do the same thing with a street I'm sure but I'm sure the homeowners get a cut on their tax rate because they have a private street don't they you know they do no they do not it's the same for everybody thanks for let me ask the question Commissioner Ellis thank you chair I'll just throw out my two cents I understand what you're saying but it's a private street so if it's a private street it's hard to use public funds and then it's only allowed for these 75 homes that are in there so I I mean I I assume that's why it's written as it's written because it is a private street and so if you want it private you want it gated and you only want access to those 75 homes then I think I mean it's a tough argument to have as to why public funding would be allowed to be used for 75 homeowners and I'd love a response for that you know it's coming right well to Commissioner Stelvin's point you those people pay exactly the same rates on all their utility bills all their fees is everybody else but however they don't get the services back in their subdiv ision so they pay twice because it is private they have to pay not only the city fees but if there is an issue in then they got to come out of pocket themselves to pay for that so really they subsidize the city's streets and not the public not the private ones so they're paying for things that they don't get Commissioner Ellis okay so maybe then that's another avenue of discussion of how do how do we maybe help that versus just because the other thing does define doesn't make sense to me which is why we have to define it there I'm just gonna raise a cautionary flag this may be getting off the germane notice thank you yeah well thank you again for let me make the comment and post a question for consideration any other questions for we any other questions on this under we have additional items are we wrapping up this was it okay I wanted to say how excited I was to see some some students in the room that was mad sent zoning to that that is very exciting and very unusual for our line of work so I appreciate you coming today I was going to ask since we've stopped why are you all here are you here for a school project or good nonetheless we're glad you're here yes thank you all for coming out it's good to see young people come out and be a part of the process so thanks for taking time out of your day to come for whatever the reason is so with that if there aren't any other questions we'll close this at 520 record time today you