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