Nov 02, 2021 City Council on 2021-11-02 3:00 PM

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. Today is November 2nd. It is 3 p.m. We do have a quorum so I'll call the meeting to order. First item on the agenda is the citizen's comments on the consent agenda items. Do we have any comments? No sir, there are no callers for these. Thank you. That takes us to the request for clarification on agenda items listed on on this agenda. Questions for staff? Councilmember Beck? Thank you Mr. Mayor. I have a couple of questions. D, E, G, H, and K. Okay what's your question for D? D, I'm just curious what's in our in the the gorillas knot soil stabilizer? What are we spraying on the landfill? I know gorillas knot is a brand name but I'm delighted by that. Actually I was I was thankful that you pulled that item. I wanted someone to say that on. I believe Eugene McKinney may be on the line. Or maybe not. David will get these. Yes. There he is. I'm on the line. I'll be more than happy to answer that. You know the content of the gorillas knot is almost unknown. That's something that's a trademark to them but what it does, it allows dust and other particles to adhere closer to the ground so they're not admiration. It goes into the air and creates an environment of too much dust. So we already sprayed and the idea is to spray the gorillas knot down and it helps everything adhere to the ground. So we that's how we control dust. So I guess a follow-up if I might is is um I don't think we have to have it for this meeting but if if staff could send me what is known what can be revealed about the gorillas knot product in terms of its composition at some future point I would appreciate that. Okay I'll be more than happy to get that over. I do know that it is an environment and safe product as the company has cited but we'll be more than glad to get that to you. Thank you. And item E. E is a question that we recently had an item about the Aeropure for odor control but this is the quick air as I understand it and why do we need the two products and how do they work in combination? Well again I'd be more than happy to answer that. So we a particular machine or apparatus was purchased back in 2005 and the department has been using that but as part of our settlement agreement for our expansion it is necessary to continue to use that. Now it's almost our it's a requirement and that product is proprietary it can only be used with that piece of equipment. Okay so we're sort of we're stuck until we get rid of that piece of equipment. All right I guess that that sort of makes sense although it feels like you know we're running we're running two different mechanisms here but all right. Thank you I appreciate that. Let's see. H. G sir if I might. And this was the the HAL design group security system. And my question for that was I know and I appreciate that that staff want an enterprise solution and I completely understand and agree. I'm just curious what the what the sort of expected costs are for maintaining the current system versus the aggregate costs of getting a new system plus the consultants fees. Although in general I support the concept of getting an enterprise security solution. Either Marissa is on the call or Christine. I am. Hi my name is Marissa Barrett. I'm the administration manager for the facilities department and we have taken a long look into our current security systems and unfortunately the enterprise solution is not the only piece that is appealing to us in a new security system. The one we currently have is very close to reaching its maximum capacity. So that means that any new buildings or any new doors that we try to add to the system would be unsuccessful. And we initially brought in the security consultant HAL design group to help us with some of the new construction builds that we're doing to ensure that we are providing the appropriate access controls for the use of the building. And in doing that helps lead to an evaluation of our existing system. All right so to answer your question sir. Oh I'm sorry I spoke over you. What was that last part? I'm so sorry I was just asking if that answered your question. No I think you did this. I'm going to paraphrase. So if I'm understanding correctly essentially the biggest issue is scalability to new resources. Yes sir. Okay all right. I think that answers my question on that one. H is I just want to confirm for that this is the temporary employment services that the rough estimate of $130,000 a year includes both temporary salary and any associated fees with the temp agency that there's not. This is Christine Taylor the procurement director and you are correct that $130,000 contains anything that we would pay to the employment agency for those temporary labor services. Okay that answers that one and then the the last one I had is K for the assistant judges and I guess my question is not necessarily who but were there any assistant judges that we didn't not not who were there were there is there a count of assistant judges that we did not choose to carry forward? Judge Atkinson may be not able to answer that but we can get the answer and get it to you. That would be great that would be perfect solution. I appreciate that city manager thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Any other questions? Seeing none thank you. All right that takes us to our first work session which is ID 211269 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the audit project 024- emergency medical services billing and collections. Hello mayor and city council I'm Madison Rocha Denton city auditor here to present this audit project. Pull this up. So to begin this audit generally evaluated the effectiveness of the city's emergency medical service services ambulance billing administration and processes. So annually the city receives about 2.7 million dollars for provided emergency medical services. In general the ambulance billing process includes patient care report data entry, patient billing based on medical coding and patient account management. The audit also reviewed the city's emergency medical services fee structure and EMS billing vendor payments. So I'll begin by discussing the patient care report data entry process. So the Texas administrative code requires that emergency medical services or EMS providers accurately complete patient care reports to document medical services provided to patients for every EMS ambulance run. These patient care reports are not only critical to document administered medical care but also serve as the basis for patient billing. Based on review we found that the fire department maintains an EMS protocols handbook that just details the processes staff should use to provide and document medical assistance. Annually all EMS staff are required to pass an exam covering these procedures. In addition almost a fourth of patient care reports or of all patient care reports in a year are reviewed by EMS fire captains to ensure medical care was administered in accordance with the department's protocols. We also found that the EMS software has access restrictions to ensure the integrity of patient care reports, to ensure that the integrity of the patient care reports is appropriately safeguarded. Specifically once a report is finalized it cannot be changed. Instead if a change must be made an amendment to the report is completed and then attached to the original report. In addition only EMS fire captains have the ability to delete patient care reports from the system and all deletions are recorded in an audit log. And based on a review of this log we found that no patient care reports appeared to be deleted inappropriately. However we recommended that the department develop a process to periodically review the deletion log to ensure that no reports are inappropriately deleted in the future. And based on their management response the department intends to develop a process to do this. Next the city has contracted with an EMS billing vendor to bill and manage its EMS patient accounts. The billing process begins when the vendor receives a patient care report and transforms the narrative information into medical codes, medical billing codes. The vendor then sends out bills to each patient and or their insurance company. Payments for these bills are sent directly to the city's bank or made electronically. So that process ensures that billing and payment processing duties are appropriately segregated to reduce the risk of fraud. In addition we found that all patient care reports were forwarded to the EMS billing vendor to be processed for billing. While 11 percent of those reports weren't actually billed this appeared to be appropriate based on medical services provided. We did identify a communication issue between the vendor and the fire department that resulted in about 90 patient care reports over a period of about two and a half years being placed on hold by the vendor while they awaited a response from the city and this issue was resolved during the audit period. Based on a review of a statistical sample of 96 patient care reports patient EMS charges appeared to be billed in accordance with the city's adopted fee schedule and all payments were appropriately processed. In addition patients appeared to be sent balance statements in a timely manner. We did identify four instances where an account was sent to collections inappropriately because the Medicare disallow amount was not applied to the balance. According to the vendor these issues have been addressed with the collection agency and their staff have been retrained on applying disallow amounts. We also reviewed the remaining eight accounts from the city's previous EMS billing vendor which are now managed by the city's fire administration division. These accounts appeared to be managed appropriately however there were no documented processes detailing how to manage reconcile and apply payments to these patient accounts so for that reason we recommended that these procedures be formalized to facilitate consistency and to help retain organizational knowledge and based on their management response the department intends to develop these procedures. Next the city of Denton's code of ordinances requires the city to charge fees for emergency ambulance services provided. The city has not changed the amount charged for EMS transport since at least 2010. Based on discussions with fire department staff there are no documented procedures for establishing the EMS billing fee schedule. Similarly the city has not established cost recruitment goals to guide the establishment of these fees. Based on a review of a sample of 96 patient care reports the city receives about $300 on average for each transport however it is unclear how much the city spends per transport due to budget structure. Without this information it's difficult to determine what percentage of its costs the city is recouping with the current fee schedule. For these reasons we recommended that the fire department develop formal procedures to establish the EMS billing fee schedule including establishing recruitment goals based on program costs collection rates and payer mix. Based on their management response the department intends to establish recruitment goals and develop a standard operating procedure for creating the annual EMS fee schedule. On another note high patient transport refusal rates may indicate community perception that an organization's EMS fees are too high. Based on review we found that about 6 percent of patients refuse transport which is low based on industry research. In addition the fire department reviews at least 10 percent of patient care reports with a refusal disposition as part of its quality control and assurance procedures which allows them to kind of review that as they go throughout the year. In addition almost 20 percent of the amount charged to the city's patients was sent to collections. The city has tried to assist individuals with ambulance bills in the past by providing payment plan options. However according to the EMS billing vendor none of the reviewed patients were on a payment plan. Furthermore the vendor could not provide us with a list of patients with the payment plan. We also found that payment plan options were not clearly communicated on the city's website or on patient bills. So for this reason we recommended that the fire department ensure information on payment plan options is available to patients and require and we recommended that they require the EMS billing vendor to periodically report on patient payment plan status. According to their management response the fire department is currently working with the vendor to ensure ambulance bills and the city's website include language about payment plan options and the department is also working to determine if the vendor's contract needs to be amended to ensure that these options are clear in the future. Finally we found that the city appeared to have paid the EMS billing vendor appropriately and in compliance with their contract terms. That being said we recommended that the department establish a documented process for reconciling the EMS billing vendor's payment reports to the payments received by the city to ensure that the payments continue to be accurate. So in summary we issued a total of nine recommendations to the fire department all of which were concurred or partially concurred. Based on this response we believe the identified risk will be appropriately addressed and plan to conduct a follow-up in six to 18 months. So take this down. Great thank you. Questions for staff. Councilmember Armitage. Yes quick question and thank you for this audit and thank you to for the fire department for participating. Just a quick question probably for the fire department to answer but you might have the answer you might have come across it in your audit since you're already here at the day. So I was just wondering you know about those six percent of refusals of transportation and that's great that that's that that's lower than the average. I was just curious if there was any perception from the fire department that that might that that refusals might have anything to do with billing or is you know are there reasons people give for refusals. Just curious just to hear anecdotally if there's any connection there. I'll let the fire department speak to that question. Good afternoon. Good afternoon fire chief. We usually what we experience is when we make responses there's a certain percentage of the population that they're unsure as far as medical conditions. We'll do assessment on them. We'll give them our finding. To that point they actually either refuse all medical service. They look at private ways to be transported to the hospital. Sometimes they prefer to go to a minor emergency clinic as well. There's so many different options as well but that's one of the recommendations also is to actually look into a more deeper dive of our no transports. So in the future we'll be looking at seeing kind of what is the basis for them not transporting as well. It will be something else we'll have to capture on our patient care reports. So it's going to be another category that our employees will have to check our documents. So we're working on incorporating that in the future. Well wonderful. Thanks for all you do and all the lives you save. Thanks. Councilmember Bar. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the on on slide five. You mentioned that there are no documented procedures for establishing EMS billing fee schedule and that costs per transport are unclear due to budget structure. Can you elaborate on on why we don't have that information about cost per transport and where you're going from there? Yeah so I mean I think the information is out there. It just wasn't readily available to the fire department. So I think part of that is because costs of like buying ambulances is all in a separate fund with fleet. There's also payroll costs and so you'd really want to include all of those when you're calculating that transport cost. But they were they simply had their direct EMS expenses like buying medicines and other kinds of supplies like that. So do you feel that we have adequate data to to determine whether the the price that our EMS services is charging is appropriate to you know to cover the costs? I think we have adequate data to do that comparison. It just partially is how do they want to allocate those expenses that are indirect right like the like the vehicles and so we didn't want to make that assumption as audit. I think that that's something that they need to do to figure out how do they want to allocate the cost of vehicles you know when are we depreciating it over a certain period of time and things like that. Okay yeah thank you. Mayor Proctor-Melton. I think if you had done this you would have already told us but it just occurs to me have you benchmarked as part of this audit benchmarked those costs against providers you know in the region? The fees or the costs? The fees. We did not do that as part of this audit in part because some of the research we read really indicated that that wasn't necessarily the best way to look at costs because. Just a piece right obviously you want to cover your costs then the question is is it direct costs or fully loaded costs but it's at least you know it's just part of the constellation. My opinion is it would be at least be interesting to know if everyone's always is around a certain number if it's all over the place. Yes I agree. Okay go ahead. David Becker, Assistant Fire Chief. Councilman we actually as we do look each year and we look at our schedule of fees we look at increase in medicine costs we look in changes in our medicine our protocols and the things that we do use and as we all know medicine continues to increase some of the different procedures that we provide we have to look at those individuals but one thing that we actually do is as the EMS chief reaches out to other agencies in our area and and we look at how they do their billing their fees and the kind of things that they do and it is apples oranges a lot of times they're not all the same but it does give a side deal what some of our comparison cities are doing. Great thanks. Councilman Beck. Thank you Mr. Mayor. So I'm not sure who this is for Allison or Mr. Becker or one of the others. It occurs to me that as Mayor Pratt was saying that there's a complex fee structure is it our desire to make transport revenue neutral or we are expecting to absorb the cost into the city at least partially? From our perspective I think that's a conversation that needs to be had when setting the fees it's it wasn't clear from from when we talked to the fire department about what their their expectation was with that but I believe the chief could maybe speak more to that if you'd like. That's an interesting question because there's really no way to be able to be cost neutral on this with the amount of call volume we have as well so it's going to just be a certain percentage of cost recovery. It's a discussion we probably need to have with the elected body what do you envision as far as your expectations as far as our revenue collections on EMS so we can have that in the future as well but we have set fees and we haven't really changed them the base prices have been set for the past 10 years as well so they're really what we have fluctuated it's been the consumables so the equipment the medicines various things of that nature as well so I'll see. David Heeney's assistant city manager I think that's a great question it really falls in line with the conversations we've had over the past couple years on planning fees parks fees where we get that full cost so we understand what the subsidy is and we and we can have that that policy conversation with council do we want to be 80 90 percent what or 100 full cost recovery but without the full cost that analysis going into you can't make that decision so heading into the next budget year from the finance department they're going to bring forward that full cost analysis that Madison mentioned where not just direct costs but indirect costs what are the what's the full cost of transport and then we'll have that policy conversation with council of what should that subsidy level be yeah you you you anticipated what my exact question was with we're doing different levels of cost recovery on all these different items across the city and so I was curious if if we even had an expectation that we were going to do some or just noted that we would absorb it so yeah I look forward to that in the future thank you thank you councilman Burke I was curious about um whenever uh someone has the emergency care to come out um when do when does the I don't I don't know if this has this is a curiosity question I'm sorry um when do you when do you determine to that you're going there's a cost associated with that there's a cost associated with having emergency cared every time they come out or what level what has to happen for it to be a bill associated with that yeah I think this is a question for the fire department yeah that's I knew that I had always wondered that if I were to call you out and you came out and maybe just check my blood pressure or something is it a cost associated with that and you know what has to happen to say we we now you know you now you've incurred a bill well to answer that question david becker again uh on the initial call uh let's say we come to your house and we do a blood pressure check we discuss we discuss with you the assessment of that situation we talk to you about your concerns and then we try to come up with a treatment plan and maybe that includes transport sometimes it's fear sometimes it's you know just check mama out but there's no fee for that and and at one point in 2018 we actually addressed some of our assessment costs that we were charging and we felt like they were hindering our paramedics to make a true assessment of our patients so we removed those from our schedule of fee so it took away that fear that you were going to get a bill and it gave us a better uh vision or a better uh impression on what kind of care you needed we uh most of our fees come from a transport come from the things that you the the care that you receive while you're in the transport whether it's an ib oxygen and the only non-transport fees that we do charge is occasionally when we treat a patient on the scene and start an ib or do some form of als or bls and then put it in a simple term we give you a updraft or a nebulized treatment because you're not breathing very well but then because you didn't fill your meds or we do care because you're a diabetic and we get you stabilized and then the family decides they want to go we do charge a fee for that but it coincides with our schedule fee if you would have been transported it just doesn't have the transport fee with it okay all right thank you does that answer your question that does answer my question thank you mayor pro temel sir yeah just make a comment you know when we uh have looked at fees in other areas the framework is is that there's a spectrum of uh whether of recovery for whether it's entirely a public benefit or entirely private benefit right if it's entirely private benefit you're inclined to recover more and i would just you know express a point of view that sure when you get the ride it's a it's a very personal benefit to the person who you know gets that care but every day that you don't get a ride there's a public benefit knowing that you're there and that you're available so it's it's you know it's clearly not a just solely private benefit matter opinion any other questions seeing none thank you very much medicine thank you takes us to item b which is id 21 2211 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding city observed holidays employee personal holidays good afternoon mayor city council tiffany thompson director of human resources to have a discussion about our city holidays a little bit of background on june 17th of this year president joe biden and vice president kamala harris signed a bill into law that made june 19th june 18th a federal holiday after that happened several discussions amongst cities started happening about adding that holiday including some questions from our current council during the budget process city council adopted priorities and one of our focus areas is to pursue organizational excellence by continuing to evaluate organizational staffing and benefits our holidays is one of the most amazing benefits that we do offer here at the city so what we started to do in human resources is benchmark with 101 other texas cities to see what they offer the city of didn't has nine observed holidays there's 11 federal holidays the four holidays that the city of didn't does not observe currently is president's day juneteenth columbus day and veteran's day so out of the 101 texas cities that we surveyed 43 of those that are in the north texas area amongst our neighboring cities so again we observe nine city holidays here at didn't eight percent of our surveyed cities have the nine holidays 77 percent of the city surveyed offered 10 to 13 holidays so as you can see based off the data collected city of didn't is on the lower end of the currently observed holidays holidays to consider and what the impacts are so the two floating holidays i wanted to talk about what those are is these are holidays that would be front loaded in the beginning of january for employees to use as they wish this would help us to be more inclusive to be able to accommodate our diverse workforce so they could take different holidays for celebrations that are important to them again with the floating holidays we do not have to close city offices so the impact is minimal as far as services go 70.9 percent of the surveyed cities offer two floating holidays for their employees 55.6 percent of the surveyed cities offer president's day as it observed holiday while good friday is not a federal holiday it is widely observed amongst other cities with 86.9 percent and then juneteenth 24.6 currently observed that but right now 29 additional are looking to add that for 2022 which would bring that to about 53.6 percent of the cities would start recognizing juneteenth as an observed holiday and then veterans day also is one of the ones that's widely observed with 65.3 percent so the two biggest impacts with adding a holiday that's observed is closing city facilities so the city facilities would be closed those services authored in those facilities would not be present however your um critical infrastructure police fire dispatch 24/7 operations would continue the budgetary impact to it when you add a holiday you would be paying city staff normally as you would so there really comes into the cost of overtime cost overtime cost to add a city holiday is about seventy five thousand dollars for one city holiday so those are the two major impacts if we were to consider adding a holiday so today for discussion staff recommends adding juneteenth just based off our community and what we're also seeing with other cities that's one thing to consider today and then adding to personal floating holidays as well so today does city council want to add an observed holiday what direction would you like to provide me on what holiday to observe if you would like to go that route and then if you wanted to do that what our next steps would be we would update our policy and then we would implement it and that would start with january of 2022 and at that point i am most happy to handle any questions you may have okay uh questions for staff and if you could include your direction so that first pass we can get that out uh so um councilor armature yes i don't have any questions but i do have direction first of all thank you so much uh for these these recommendations and assessing our holiday offerings compared to other cities i i didn't know that we were on the low end so that's good to know and to alter it um i support strongly support adding juneteenth which is very important to the city of denton i also support the two floating holidays both recommended by staff in addition to that i also support adding veterans day for a couple of reasons one uh you know 65.3 percent of other texas cities offered that's that's a lot uh i i think we should be on that side um and not only are a number of uh uh members of the public uh veterans but we also have staff who are veterans both current and future staff who we want to attract who are veterans um and uh you know we're committed to having zero veteran homelessness uh and i i think that uh you know because denton is known already known as a city that cares very much about veterans i i feel strongly that we should include that too so just for clarification you spoke on veterans day you spoke on juneteenth you did not speak on the floating holidays uh yes i did yes i i support the two floating holidays as well in addition okay got it sorry taking notes uh mayor procter melton yeah uh i'm absolutely open to staff recommendation and and uh others as well uh especially with the long tradition of observance of juneteenth and denton i think it's you know just a great opportunity that now it's a federal holiday too uh but i i'm a little unclear uh i i get that we are under holidayed versus kind of municipalities we compete with but i don't really have a sense of by how many is you know because i don't really kind of know what the what the holiday budget is that we're trying to hit uh do you have a sense of like how many days more do other municipalities tend to give in total i mean we i got that others give certain ones yes i didn't really get the idea of in total where do we stand you know as potential employees are comparing if i can clarify the question are you asking how many holidays do we give how many holidays do competing municipalities give okay so they we we give nine and the majority are giving between 10 to 13 on but they're giving on the higher end closer to 13 and then summary offering up to 15 plus holidays so i was just trying to give you that more middle ground yeah um maybe even a little bit more conservative but yeah some some are very very generous yeah well there's a you know great rationale for it so there's room uh it doesn't sound like the expense is you know is uh really uh very burdensome and juneteenth is fine uh and i'm happy with the idea of veterans day as well floating i think helps deal with the fact that we've got diversity in our workforce and different people want to observe different days so i'm i'm fine with what's been said chancellor maguire thank you um uh council member armitage read my mind and made exactly the recommendation i was going to make um i agree with staff's direction um to add juneteenth and two personal floating holidays um and i would also like to see in addition to that veteran's day added okay uh councillor burke uh yes i am uh in agreement with the juneteenth holiday and along with the floating personal holidays thank you councillor bet so i'll make it four for the um juneteenth veterans day and uh two floating councillor davis yeah that sounds good to me i think that's a good a good way to do it and brings us in line with some of our peers and also mentioned uh can't leave out the universities and the county also because it's not just peer cities it's other people who have kids who have days off from school and maybe a spouse has the day off like take a family trip all that kind of stuff so that brings us better in line with some other employers here in the city okay very good thank you i will be updating the policy and bring that forth on agenda i definitely appreciate the feedback today thank you okay that takes us to item c id 212428 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding an update to the city of denton covid 19 response good afternoon mayor city council sara kechler chief of staff have a very brief presentation for you with the covid 19 update okay so we last provided an update to city council uh last week on october 26 um on october 26 we held a work session gave that covid updates on the statistics and the transmission in the area and then later that evening city council considered a 16th order of council which council did adopt to extend the mask requirements and the local order through november 30th so today just to give you more of an update on covid statistics so very briefly cases and hospitalizations continue to decline in denton county and that continues to decline for every age group as far as vaccines the really good piece of news that we've received is that last week the fda approved emergency use for the pfizer vaccine for ages five to 11 the cdc is considering approval of that today so if approved denton county public health is ready to start the registration process and move forward with administering those vaccines to ages five to 11 so that's good news and hopefully we'll hear something later today and denton county public health will be launching that with public communications and we will also help to support that as well so here's some of the graphs from denton county public health's website in terms of cases by date reported you see it continue to decline i think last week dr richardson said there was a total of 800 active cases throughout the county that's the lowest it's been for for quite some time since july for hospital capacity that continues to improve as well you'll see the two charts here showing the icu occupancy and then as well as the percentage of total covid pace patients as overall patients in denton county hospitals so you're seeing that continue to decline and i think as of yesterday it was at eight point nine percent again one of the lowest we've seen throughout the last few weeks and months so this the 16th order is in effect and we have communicated that to the public as well as to our local businesses and then through this month in november we do plan a staff to come back to you on november 9th to give you another update on covid and seek direction if you wish to potentially consider an extension of that local order or allow for expiration of the order and on november 16th is where we would be seeking that final direction if you wish to take an action on the order as that is our last regularly scheduled council meeting for november so that's the update that i have i also got one question from a council member in regards to the cdc recommendations as far as individuals wearing face covering in indoor public spaces and areas of high transmission and if we as staff can continue to share what if the denton county will continue to be an area of high transmission so we will do that in future presentations but i want to take a moment if this works dr richardson was actually asked the question this morning during the denton county commissioner's court meeting and as far as what where do we stand as a state in a county in terms of our transmissibility so i wanted it's better coming directly from dr richardson's i wanted to share this with you it's only two minutes um his presentation is a little longer and it's on the line if you'd like to watch that as well but i'm going to give this a go aren't sick people aren't exposed so they're not sensing the need to go get tested really really good news okay commissioner just to your point i did call this slide up this shows you the states in the u.s that are in high transmission and substantial texas is one of very few states in the u.s that has gone down to substantial transmission okay so substantial transmission versus high there's a reduction in the positivity there's a reduction in cases a reduction in hospitalizations we are seeing that same thing in denton county our cases are down according to the cdc and they're reporting i'll i'll just mention the difference we do investigations on every report so we attempt to contact every individual do the contact tracing we are still doing that work the cdc doesn't necessarily do that they'll just report positive tests we make sure that people are positive but they're still denton county residents we do some data integrity work to make sure that we're not over reporting however even the cdc with their with their metrics are noting a decline in cases a decline in positivity a decline in deaths and a decline in hospital admissions so we're still in high transmission in denton county texas overall is substantial we're in high but i think in this next week we will move to substantial as well which is really good news the the classification below substantial is moderate and that's the one commissioner where we talked about it would be fewer than 450 cases per week it's under 50 cases per hundred thousand residents so for us again if you extrapolate that 450 over seven days if we can get below 450 we'll be in the moderate we'll be in the moderate scale and that will be simply marvelous we have not been there since june dr richards yes sir uh the one i think that was just what i wanted to to show you as you can hear it from dr richardson so he he made a prediction of course that's dependent on a lot of things but we'll continue to to monitor that but i think overall the good news that we continue to see that decline in cases and hospitalizations and positivity rate so happy to answer any questions council has so i have one question uh the did he touch on i saw it but i want to just confirm the didn't nice these reports and numbers and their numbers have continued to decline is that your understanding have you looked at those numbers at all i have not looked at those numbers recently but they're they're on the denton county public health website and i believe that is the case yeah that's my understanding as well and and i think that's notable because they are the school district is 200 square miles the city of dentons 100 square miles my understanding so twice the size they've removed their mask mandate and that's a population that can't be can't take a vaccine at this point so as a test case or just kind of to read the data my understanding is they the mask mandates removed these are kids that none can you know except for high school kids can be vaccinated to date or you know whatever that break is wherever you are in school but there's a great majority that can't be vaccinated but then their numbers have not even when they removed the mask mandate have not spiked i hadn't seen any any change in those numbers and i think that's just for me just understand that with respect to our conversation about the rec centers exercise because kids have pe you know they're interacting adults are vaccinated kids or not so just wanted to understand that that correlation so thank you for that counselor maguire thank you so i i'd like to um elaborate on what dr richardson said in that video and make sure everybody watching at home understands that the cdc recommends universal indoor masking for everyone over the age of two in areas with high or substantial transmission so we are close to the cusp of being downgraded from red to orange but orange is still the cdc still recommends that areas that are in the orange still continue to wear masks it'll be when dr richardson referred to when we get below 450 cases per week as a county is when the cdc will no longer recommend universal masking indoors for everyone over age two any other questions okay seeing none oh counselor back thank you mr mayor i will just say that it's it's that these are heartening trends and i think we're all pleased um you know regardless of where you stand on the mask mission issue everyone is pleased that our fellow denton county residents and denton city residents are experiencing less of this pandemic than they have in the past i think there's there's no doubt about that um and i i just encourage people to as we go into the cooler months and the gathering festivals uh we just had our big one uh on sunday for the the lead off of our fall festivals um i think people generally were good uh Halloween masks don't hurt even though they're not really effective at masking but i think it now is the time to help those numbers continue to diminish decrease and so that we can get to that moderate level before we go into thanksgiving so that we don't have an explosion over thanksgiving and christmas hanukkah and the other um the other midwinter festivals i think just for the public just just keep on and if you will stay the course we will be able to get to that number that dr richardson talked about any other questions for staff okay thank you very much takes aside i'm d which is id 2 1 2 1 5 6 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding a requested follow-up from the june 15 2021 work session on the display of non-government related flags on the city of denton facilities and requested and requested options for recognition um good afternoon mayor and council stuart birdseye the assistant to the city manager i am here today with a follow-up discussion from a couple of work sessions that were held in june the first was on june 8th it was a one-minute pitch request from council member armator to fly the pride flag and juneteenth flag during the month of june direction from that one-minute pitch was to have a follow-up work session we did that on june 15th and we provided some background and as for direction specific to those requests from the june 8th council meeting those options that we presented at that time included a council initiated option where council initiates the flying of symbolic flags through resolution to develop a policy and then flags that meet that criteria would be flown or take no action on flags and continue the current recognition practices council members discussed these options and generally indicated interest or no objections to in continuing the current proclamation process but adding additional visual recognition for both pride month and juneteenth we did that by displaying messages on the civic center marquee and then there was also direction there to bring this work session back about potentially developing a policy or program for groups to request flags to be displayed on a separate flag pole so that's what i'm here to discuss today just some current background on our current processes the ability to have proclamations is given through the rules of procedure what's highlighted in red there are the exclusions to what's considered acceptable so any proclamation with a religious theme or partisan in nature should not be presented and proclamations should not be used for any commercial or advertising purposes what happens now is that the groups or individuals make the request to staff we forward that to the mayor as outlined in the rules of procedure for approval to place on the agenda and then we work hand-in-hand with the organization to schedule and develop that proclamation and so as we continue the discussion today if we wanted to expand current recognition processes or practices as we talked about back in june this first list here lead the pledge of allegiance social media posts and so on those are ideas that just as staff we kind of discussed internally as potential items that could be expanded to our current recognition process we also looked around at other cities and municipalities and what they do and these were similar to what we've seen there so potential options could include to lead the pledge of allegiance at council meetings have a social media post a message on the civic center marquee make that more standard across all organizations recognition on the city's website with a link to the organization quick highlight on dtv with videos or pictures from the meeting if we were interested in pursuing this we could create an official proclamation request form and provide some options for groups to request and then something to point out about these is that these options would pretty much carry no additional cost outside of additional staff time and we'd be able to work that into our normal schedule and then the approval process would continue as is it would just be kind of an expansion of our current process we did want to bring another option to you and that's to create a flag display program this was also discussed and it would be a separate flagpole to commemorate an event or occasion and then if i think at the time it was kind of discussed to put it at the civic center marquee and we've listed some things just for consideration based on what we've seen elsewhere there's not necessarily another means municipality that does a program like this but these are just what we found to kind of be best practices the eligibility as we would recommend it is outlined there it commemorates an event or occasion that's in public interest of community members of the city of denton and then the next two bullet points are in line with what's currently outlined for proclamations and the rules of procedure so anything inappropriate or offensive in nature those supporting partisan or religious themes or any request for commercial or advertising purposes would not be approved and then the application we recommend at least 60 days in advance of the requested date and the reason for that 60 days is because we recommend providing a stanley month a standing monthly resolution for council approval of the coming month's request and that's because council's in the best position to determine what is public interest and what's inappropriate or offensive because it can vary widely and it could put staff in a very difficult position and i know it was discussed last time but staff does not recommend an administrative approval process based on a certain criteria because so many of those tow that line we do recommend that if you'd like to do this in a flagpole be installed at the civic center marquee there's one time cost of three thousand dollars to install a 20-foot flagpole and it would take an estimated six to ten weeks to order this and install it so then the flag would be provided by the community group so the staff's not in the position of choosing the right one and then it must meet specifications just for size and material to make sure that everything's standard across the board there they would be raised during regular business hours and days as staff is available to do so and then to ensure that all eligible requests have the opportunity to be recognized we recommending we recommend limiting groups to one request per year with a one-week maximum display period that way if there's multiple events in a month then multiple organizations could be recognized now there are risks involved with this the city could be challenged and face legal action if a request is is denied and any request meeting a basic criteria would have to be approved per the policy and so what we're doing today we're seeking direction on the following would you like to continue our current practice or enhance our current proclamation practice initiate the new program as i just described or we could revisit the alternative option that we presented back in june and that's a council initiated option to fly additional additional flags on the flagpoles that we currently have as presented in june 2021 and to remind you what that looks like this would be a council driven item for flags to be flown at city facilities and based on the council direction we would draft a resolution perhaps annually that lists out certain holidays and the certain flags that would be raised the council could handle this on a case by case basis amending the resolution when council wants to add or remove certain flags if the resolution were established then if a council member wanted to amend that schedule they could schedule a two-minute pitch for that and then this would be or could be considered an act of government speech which is the most defensible option if you have questions about that i'm not the one to answer our city attorney would be best for that and then the city would purchase and own the flags because this would be a city initiated process and so with that i will lower my screen and leave time for discussion or questions okay questions for staff and if you can give your direction councilmembers yes so question about the definition of community group i can see that coming up what what exactly constitutes a community group i myself would have a preference for as loose a definition as possible but wondering if we already staff already had one in mind yeah so generally whenever we receive proclamation requests now if it's from a national organization or a national cause we'd like for them to have a local chapter or a local tie-in to dentin and so it's not just i don't know a great example but it's not the national organization for xyz it would be the dentin chapter of the national organization of xyz so it'd be a local tie to it okay now i'm hoping it wouldn't have to be a group with a national it's it's not an officially recognized or registered organization or anything like that it's just kind of a a local body so if a loose group of bicycle enthusiasts got together right now they would be able to request a proclamation it doesn't have to be an official bicycle organization something like that awesome awesome okay so i'm i'm ready to to give my direction um uh i uh support the flag display program um to give simple just a little context for it you know when i initially brought forward this flag flag proposal uh i did not like the idea of uh a uh a flag policy um because i was concerned that it would be overly uh elaborate and uh and prohibitive what staff has come up with today i think both of these recommendations for the community driven uh the community driven and the council driven are uh minimalistic enough to my satisfaction and they both come down to essentially council being the one to decide which is what i thought you know to begin with and keeping it loose enough that uh it could be any number of things um with with some obvious uh exceptions for for obvious uh legal and practical reasons um so uh i'm uh i'm not all that particular about the you know community uh whether it should be the uh the the community initiated process or the council initiated process because for me both would be initiated by a community and um decided on by council however since i have to pick one and i want to make it easier for staff to take direction uh then i'll support the community driven uh initiative you know that was how uh the uh initial proposal came to me anyway from you know people in the community um and uh so the only difference would be that you know in that case i would say oh well here you know go fill out this form and you've got my support you know and this comes before us on the consent agenda um a community initiated process you know we wouldn't stop uh council from uh encouraging certain communities who might not even know about our flag policy hey we have this flag policy you know would you like to fill out a form and you know you've got my support um so but i i want uh those who who favor a council initiated uh uh proposal uh process to know that i i support that too and so i hope staff will take that into consideration you know if there's a if there's a tie i'll be a tiebreaker and go to the uh council initiated oh oh i'm sorry and one more thing i forgot to say about the um because you're are you also you're also looking for direction on the proclamations correct if there's anything that you'd like to see kind of added for potential recognition you know i don't know if it's um written in the uh you know city charter or anything you know any kind of documents that would be hard to change um that it has to be up to the mayor to decide on those things i like the idea of the mayor being the one to issue the proclamations but i think it would be nice if that process too could come to all of council on a on a consent agenda so right now it is outlined that the mayor or presiding chair uh makes that determination okay and it's outlined uh in the rules and procedures procedure yes ma'am okay uh i think it's slide three i want to say it's like four um it says that yeah and so rules and procedures can be changed by a vote of council correct right it's not like in the charter where correct yes and we make changes i don't want to say frequently um but there are some caveats to that that it has to be i believe the city attorney can correct me it has to be uh read kind of the meeting before and then put it on the following meeting yeah so you know i i would support um having uh you know making that making that change um to both have the form as uh as recommended by or offered by staff and also to have it just come before all of council on the consent agenda you know this uh denton city council was not you know created to be a mayor strong council um and i i think that it would really reflect you know that mayors is one of seven uh votes on council uh and so we'd still get to vote but this way you know we decide we decide together and those groups who are getting recognized uh would really have the sense of that you've got seven people you know who said that this or at least a majority you know who who voted on this um and and not just one mayor protu melton yeah well i'm going to take the opposing uh view uh it's a weak mayor system but it's not an invisible mayor system uh some symbolic welcoming inclusive gestures clearly fall within the sort of ceremonial aspects of why you even have a mayor uh and uh he's uh he or she is elected by the public and i think it's it's absolutely great and has been effective for as part of that job that that that a little bit of extra pay goes for uh making those those gestures to the public those proclamations and and i would quibble a little bit with the way this was presented wasn't it well you know maybe council indicated an interest in visual recognitions but at least when i expressed it i was i was i was supportive of the mayor at the mayor's uh choosing having a visual expression of the mayoral proclamation i my my strong preference is primarily that that this whole business ends up and and stays there because you know we have real work to do and it's i think it's an incredibly attractive absorbing distraction that is almost as interesting as actually getting stuff done so uh you know i just i'm not really in at all i'm not at all in favor of this being a preoccupation of council ongoingly meeting after meeting uh i i must have supported it coming before us again for this work session i already regret it uh i i if there is in fact uh you know consensus toward the sort of a free speech poll i would personally only support it if it were able to be done administratively if the conclusion of staff is there really isn't a way for it to be done administratively then i'm happy with status quo with a recognition that you know the american you know has more tools than just reading the you know reading the proclamation you know at his or her disposal council member davis thank you mayor i really appreciate having this conversation at a policy level and kind of separate from some of the the tensions that we had the first time it came around because now we can look at it from a holistic view and realize that it's going to come up outside the context of particular events or particular community groups and i think that's really important i appreciate staff taking the time to to dig into this um i i remember pretty clearly um really appreciating the boston model and that boston had been litigated and and that they had found out exactly what their regulations could include and what their regulations could not include so i i tend to support the uh the community based option um a couple of reasons for that i think the best way for us to kind of stay in our lane with government speech is to make this the quote unquote free speech poll i think we we draft very broad criteria um i i also though tend to agree with uh mayor pro tem in that i understand that it's it's putting a certain onus on staff that is maybe less than desirable to have to tell someone your display does not meet quote unquote criteria uh whatever stated criteria that there is but i also think that the criteria ought to be so broad and so very basic that it is a is an administrative process we have lots of codes that we delegate certain aspects of decision making to staff because it is purely an administrative like in planning for instance there are things the planning director can't approve because they are so basic and they are so uh set the criteria are so broad if we're going to have a quote unquote free speech poll or community poll i think they have to be those very very broad criteria um and that they're just so broad that there really can't be disagreement and if there is disagreement you know that a group feels that they have met all criteria and um and they're being denied unfairly or something like that perhaps there's a process where they can they can pursue that but i see it's kind of problematic that um the solution of the standing resolution is very elegant but i think it it gets problematic if there's some dispute and the council is being asked to weigh in i i think we get right into that government speech issue that i think is best avoided in my mind government speech is best reserved for when we send a resolution down to the legislature when we are making a policy statement for a policy goal and not just broad measures of support which is kind of more with the community poll is about i hope that i hope that's making as much sense as i'm saying it out loud as it does in my head um i'd rather leave the proclamation process just as it is um i i'd rather leave that to uh i don't think that's a process that has had complaints or has any problems um i don't think we need to complicate it anymore um i think the proclamation process is good just as it is okay uh councilman bird i um really appreciate all the hard work you all have done uh to take a look at this and bring something back to us for uh consideration uh but what i'm going to do is stick with my uh good feeling that uh i'd like for us all to just get along it's a good thought uh for me and so with that being said uh i would like for us to continue uh what we have and hand or enhance what we have and continue with the proclamations and the current recognition process that we have uh and if we are going to uh put something on display i appreciate us using uh the marquee style rather than a poll i just think that it's just too controversial and just a lot of work that's having to go into saying yes i know the certain groups like uh councilman davis mentioned so uh yeah the continued and a hand sounds more reasonable to me and um lighting the marquee with a simple statement or colors or whatever we want to do in that matter sounds like it's would be an even keel thank you councilman beck thank you mr mayor um so i broadly for direction uh i'm going to go for the the poll that's that was a consensus sort of i agree with staff that there was sort of an ambiguous consensus but uh i'm not going to change my mind from the last view that that this sort of recognition uh should be allowed to take place and i'm not going to shift back from my view that i'm not at all afraid of a broad recognition of various groups i think that's completely fine um and and i think it matches with the kinds of goals of inclusivity that we talked about before um and i don't really i think that it's there isn't uh really an issue with a broad administrative approval that'll be faster quicker and easier um uh especially if it's broad and very inclusive uh so i don't i don't see a problem there i guess my i i don't sense um consensus but i would support uh the ability for uh council to initiate either proclamations or or poll oriented speech um um either way um but you know i'm not i'm not necessarily hearing for that right now but i do i do generally support that approach coming from council as well i i disagree with mayor pro tem that it should just be a mayoral function i think it should be leaders of the community function and we are all leaders of the community um so i i guess that's you know my support for a poll and my support for you know uh other kinds of proclamations and initiations uh coming from council okay councilman bar thank you mayor um i uh am in favor of staff's recommendation to initiate a new program um that is more community initiated where where we can see um applications um i am am totally fine with with staff's recommendation that um council um approve those requests uh via the consent agenda um i i think that that's that's a good solution um uh regarding proclamations um i am in agreement with the mayor pro tem that um that's it falls squarely into the purview of of the mayor and i'm fine keeping it that way okay uh and so i'll just um ask the city attorney can is there a legal definition for partisan not that i'm aware of that's not what defined in the in the ordinance or otherwise okay and then if i follow staff's guidance they say that the count the kind of the that definition of partisan would fall to the council am i tracking with you so if it's council approved yeah um through a resolution then you all would be able to make the determination i think that's where our concern was is having a staff member trying to make that determination between what's partisan what isn't because anything can kind of be turned into a partisan issue that's right so you have a you you have a a definition of partisan that that we have no legal definition for anything can be turned partisan and then this council changes has a potential change every year so every year that decision would change and you open a door for precedent and then you you tee yourself up for a lawsuit where we've already seen ourselves exposed the taxpayer dollars exposed to millions of dollars and so that that to me that opening the door to lose the ability to control our environment concerns me especially when you're talking about lawsuits that could exhaust funds that we have no way to recoup because we can't raise a tax rate to a certain percent we just can't protect the ratepayers if we can't be on solid legal ground so that concerns me and that's not my words that's the city attorney saying hey there's no legal definition for partisan and that's where people would go and that's the fastest hot button and then i look at the uh the other issue that came up when we talked about at last you talked about the juneteenth flag well then the expert came in and said there's no such thing as a juneteenth flag and then you get whose rights do we owe and if we fly a flag without having the rights to it then that then also leads to legal issues or payment issues that then again the city we're using taxpayer dollars that we can't recoup or protect that concerns me and then the other thing that concerns me is as i understand it when you're talking about a group you're talking about group initiated community initiated however you want to initiate it help me understand this if one group wanted to just load up all 52 weeks on january 1 when this started that could happen right so that's why we recommended the one request per year per group for a maximum of one week so that if you have a specific organization they would only have the flagpole for for one week which would open it up to more groups so let me play devil's advocate if i'm a member of 52 groups and i submit one per week for each group i belong to that becomes problematic and i think that that's where it would play into a resolution so that this council could say you've monopolized the flagpole we're going to kind of deny it and allow other groups yeah and that to me is a you get you know it gets real slippery right or if there's particular months like let's say someone's anti-juneteenth and they want to they want to load up june with other things right so now here's these targeted months that are significant and all of a sudden on january 1 i'm going to get in front of everyone and monopolize that time if the council is not thinking hey we got a reserve a week now you're reserving a week and there's all these other so it's just there's a lot of moving parts once you open the door my biggest concern once you open the door then you know there's no closing it i think the existing system works and i think it protects this the taxpayer dollars which is most important it puts us on legal ground solid legal ground because we've just had the conversation about whether you can interpret and read the sign or not whether you can read the flag or not whether this image means that or not just it's there's too many moving parts we have a priority list that we need to get to and i think we need to focus on that so that's that's my direction is just the status quo and the element of the visual component to the marquee i think that that adds a lot and mayor if i may um i have i've counted four council members who are in favor of a flagpole yes i only have two that said uh to be administratively approved and i believe two that said uh council approved and sarah can pry word things back yes that was what i heard jump up to get clarity here i i'm not hearing any consensus except to continue to move forward with the proclamation process i've heard a couple other new concepts introduced which is really more of a free speech poll and that would require us to go back probably do some more analysis i really want to work with the legal department to understand what that means and to really make you fully aware of the implications of what a free speech poll could be it is slightly different and it just would require more staff time so i just want to be real clear i haven't heard a consensus around a community flagpole the only consensus i'm hearing right now is to continue the current recognition practices that we have and that's what we'll intend to move forward with unless i hear anything else well and i don't want to i don't want to take away from what's said and city miss city manager i think i heard consensus as as um stuart did but i i need to clarify and when councilmember davis mentioned he said community-based but then he said free speech poll so that's where i counted for so a question for you councilmember davis could you because we're not we're we're not going to go back around and revisit everything that that we're not going to do we're going to get staff the answers to the questions your words are your words i'm going to try to stick close to that councilmember davis if you could answer the city manager's question yeah that's probably just uh me not being very articulate i i kind of glibly referred to a free speech poll i didn't mean a completely different i was talking about the community-based option presented by staff and if i said free speech poll i didn't i didn't mean some completely different option that's my fault does that end so just to clarify further councilmember davis that council would be approving those requests no i i said um the community-based option that staff presented but that i wanted an administrative approval process so i'm so i'm one of the two over here and there's the two over there i just think there's a little bit it's going to require another work session to to really walk through what that means and might even want to have a closed session i just want to make sure you're fully aware of what that could mean if if we're put in that position to approve things means anything that's coming to us that meets the criteria will be getting approved and so it's it's not maybe total free speech but it's very close to it so if it's a black lives matter blue lives matter i mean any of those even where you see opposing viewpoints everything would be allowed basically on that flagpole um otherwise we we are at a lot of risk as a city um to deny anything and i just think i just want to make that aware um that council you know we we as staff could be put in a very difficult position saying we've approved this why would you ever prove it could be discriminatory so forth it's just really a slippery slope okay any does staff have any other questions for in councilmembers any anything that was not clear well the only thing i want to make clear is is there four votes for the staff to handle it because i think there was two too i know there's a vote and there's a support for community poll but there was two that said administratively and two that said by council that's i just want clarity there and i agree with sarah if it is going to be handled administratively we would need some time to work with the legal department and really come back to you and share with you what our biggest concerns are and what might be some um guidelines to make to to to help with how this was written okay well then then so we're scheduled for another round numbers 14 no yeah 14 minutes and so that's two minutes piece i've said my piece i'll just simply say i don't want to put staff in that position staff's not asked not to be put in that position so i'm not going to do that to you uh i'm not going to overrule what you requested but we'll just go we'll just go down the line uh so you can pull your names off council member beck you have you have two minutes people that says like really broad that's fine some people will be unhappy in fact most people will be unhappy and that's the right government decision when most people are unhappy counseling require yeah i'm just going across because we're trying to give everyone two minutes to say whatever you need to i'm just going to reiterate my position from before that i'm in favor of maintaining our current um uh our current procedure for proclamations and that when it comes to flags um i would like to follow um staff's recommendation that we have a flagpole um and that there be a process for the community to place requests and that council be the entity that decides um which requests meet the criteria councilor armature yeah uh i uh really understand staff's position on this um i don't want to put staff in that position um or the city in that position we have the opportunity uh as government to do government free speech and to decide uh staff is is not elected and uh i think it would really be a terrible position to put them in uh and nor do i want to see just kind of say yes to everything there are some things that could uh be really harmful um and uh i don't support that we vote on things every day based on our priorities that we've ran on this is something that we could vote on the consent agenda too uh so anyway i i just can't say yes to having that come from staff okay uh mayor put your mouth yeah very helpful discussion so uh don't want to put staff in that position i don't want council to be obsessed with this i i i'm just for the mayoral proclamation process with whatever visual displays the uh whoever the sitting mayor is chooses to uh include okay council member number three take no action on flags continue current recognition practices only display the u.s state and city related flags continue to provide recognition of our requests or proclamations and other means okay period and uh council member davis you're the caboose thank you mayor mark mark calendars uh council member armenter has brought me alongside uh to i think he said what i hope everybody heard that um no it happens less than i just always call it out um but i'll up to a point up to a point and i i will i'll flip a little bit here uh to the um elected officials taking the responsibility for the program that's not because and here's where we diverge just a little bit that's not because i think that it should be us deciding calling the balls and strikes i think that when we make the wrong decision and when we deny somebody who ought to be included because when you do something like this the first amendment means everybody and when we make that decision and if we do it if we foul up it needs to be the elected people uh who who make that decision and if we decide to deny somebody and run afoul of the first amendment if the city of denton does that it needs to be the elected people who are on the hook for that decision and not staff taking the brunt from either an organization or a community or ultimately uh you know if there's a legal issue there um and and i'll just say again the first amendment is for everybody these should not be things that we regularly pull off the consent agenda to debate or to have big conversations about if we are going to allow one community to put up a flag then we are allowing the entire community to go through the same process meet the same basic criteria and put up uh any flag that meets the criteria okay very good you have everything you need i believe so i just want to say i think council member becky thank you you got it and i will i will match the make it four so for flagpole with council so mayor what i'm hearing just to make sure is four for the poll a community poll and now four that have stated they don't want to put staff in that position so they're willing to put it forth to the council and does the does sarah mentioned earlier we need to you has that change does that change your need for the work session and legal conversation we'll still need to develop an ic item individual consideration item that would have some of those elements that steward outlined for you to that council can adopt the program and policy and then we would go forward with that and we'll work with the city attorney's office if there's anything else so that we should advise you in prior to consideration of that item just in terms of really kind of going through what this would mean and what you could approve or deny and i don't know what reasons i think that's a very important part of the process mayor council um just so i'm clear because i think i'm hearing two different things i'm hearing support for a poll but we're still not hearing a consensus on whether that is a a government speech poll where the government governmental body makes the decision on which polls go up and which don't or whether that's a free speech poll approved by the council and i can't understand i can't see the four lined up for either one of those i'm hearing various people say different things about that so i still haven't heard consensus on that concept let's do this let's plan on a work session that kind of boil get together boil down what you've heard kind of give us a framework uh you can illegal can add the dos and do nots and then bring it back and we'll give clearer direction with more left with limited options you know this was kind of a broad scale let's scale it down and then bring it back take a look at those uh specific options around that specific use and we'll get you a clearer direction we can absolutely do that okay let's do that thank you thank you appreciate it yeah so um next item is time so we'll do that then we'll do uh then we can break for dinner i don't think we have anything closed session do we no great so let's conclude item e and then we'll break until 6 30 so item e is um id 21 1762 receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending city council request and i am still here with you steward birds eye assistant to the city manager today i'm here with our pending request for information and this is our two minute pitch process um just in case anybody's tuning in for the first time we re we review up to seven requests per meeting these are requests by council members that will take over two hours of staff time or as a policy change or action item we'll introduce each request and then the elected official that made the request will have two minutes to describe and justify their request the remaining elected officials will have up to one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for this item staff will respond to all requests where a consensus of council is established as we discussed in the retreat this summer the agenda committee will assist in scheduling the items that receive consensus and help us with that priority in your responses an option would be to indicate whether this is a high priority moderate priority or low priority that designation would help staff in the agenda committee in scheduling those items today's request we only have one it is from council member armator and it is for a work session to discuss enacting the attached it's uh included in the backup marijuana decriminalization decriminalization i practiced that and it didn't work uh ordinance proposed by decriminalized denton at the october 19th 2021 city council meeting um the proposed ordinance is attached along with the information that council member armator provided to us and then staff information is below um and preparation and legal review of the work session is expected to take approximately 10 staff hours and so with that i will stop sharing my screen turn it over for the second time in three years i'm calling on council to have a work session on cannabis reform whether by ordinance like the one attached here or by resolution like austin's i'm calling on you to stop wasting taxpayers money on thc testing i'm calling on you to stop wasting denton police officers limited time and expanding budget on citations for non-violent misdemeanor pot and paraphernalia possession i'm calling on you to stop the trauma inflicted on people with citations on their record for smoking pot who can't get jobs because of their records i'm calling on you to take a stand against racially disparate practices in denton just last year 120 black men were arrested for cannabis by denton police while 128 white men were arrested for the same offense even though the city's population was less than 10 black chief dixon has been doing his part to try to reduce those numbers and disparities but we're not helping him or the people we both serve by failing to take a stand as an elected body he will not always be here nor will we most texans support pot reforms even bigger than the ones i'm asking you to consider at the city level but state leadership in spite of several popular bipartisan cannabis reform bills that have come before them continue to resist the progress that we all know is inevitable we can't continue to sit idly by and wait for the state to act by passively waiting we continue to bear responsibility in the atrocity that is cannabis prohibition and affront to this nation's guiding principle of the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness we must act now if we wish to live up to our city values of inclusivity and innovation make it a high priority the public is watching thank you okay mayor pertin melzer okay first of all let's recognize the fact that we're working with a police chief who on his own initiative has reduced cannabis arrests by 85 percent so you're pushing against an open door now separation of powers makes this ordinance problematical however i propose we invite the chief to address council on whether he would personally support adopting the following policy which is within his discretion first working with judge atkinson and the city prosecutor on deferred adjudication for these citations so no record no fine for first offenses second having this citation and deferred adjudication policy apply for up to two ounces not just one like now which i understand is within the discretion that state law currently allows the chief i am fairly confident that both decriminalized denton and the chief would find this a palatable and meaningful step this makes the funding for testing question less important and so avoids interfering with building cases against violent felons possession by minors i suggest you be treated exactly like alcohol okay councillor davis thank you mayor i support having a work session on this item because i think it's clear that our community needs to talk about this issue i don't support uh coming at it from the direction of the ordinance for some of the reasons that have already been stated but also because i think we need to look at this from a perspective of where we are at as a community facts on the ground and not where an advocacy group seems to think we are or i think we also have a reason that we keep lawyers on the government payroll there are some problematic issues with the proposed ordinance that i don't think make it a good starting point for conversation i would make this a low priority item we had six people arrested in 2021 so far for marijuana possession only only six that were arrested for simply possessing marijuana and no other issues and i'll say this marijuana itself it's debatable whether that public poses a public health risk the illicit trade in marijuana there is no question we had a young man killed not two miles from here in the family dollar parking lot when he attempted to rob his weed plug thank you um i i totally agree with council member armenter that our cannabis laws do more harm than good they result in excessive incarceration especially of low income and non-white individuals and they they represent a waste of resources across our nation i do want to commend um uh chief dixon as mayor pretended for um his work in in reducing um the the number of individuals in our in our city who are impacted by that um given that this council doesn't have the legal authority to legalize cannabis unilaterally there are some elements of the proposed ordinance that might not be feasible but there are several elements that are are simply common sense and i completely support holding a work session to hammer out exactly which parts of the proposed ordinance would make the most sense for our city councilman burke uh yes i am in uh support of a work session to uh take a look at this particular subject uh i i'm just thinking about the reasonableness of it all the um you know like it's it's it's not problematic but it is a conversation that needs to be had uh and i think that this is just the most appropriate time to get that done uh especially coming into the new year um so yes let's let's put me down for a holding work session thank you councillor back all right that's more than four so i will belabor it i'm absolutely in favor of work session for many of the reasons that folks said here i i think clearly the community has moved on across the united states and in texas and in denton um but we do need to hammer out the specific details that are appropriate within the framework that we find ourselves in so i support the goals of the of the of the one two minute pitch um got it okay you have your direction thank you thank you um that concludes item e that concludes our work session we'll be back at 6 30 for proclamations and our regularly scheduled meeting uh thank you very much good good evening and welcome to this meeting of the denton city council it is 6 30 it is november 2nd we do have a quorum so i'll call the meeting back to order the first items on our agenda are pledges to the us and texas flag please stand and join us okay okay and then the next item i'll step down we have three proclamations thank you okay first we have the municipal court is there a judge in the house hi how are you rita pleasure to meet you yes thank you for being here uh you want to so you want to introduce yourself and say anything and then we'll read the proclamation sure i'm judge atkinson with the city of denton municipal court um we have a fun time over in the court administering justice we have super fun tech focused initiatives that kind of present more enhanced access to justice beyond what the law requires so that's a big snapshot of court but our court handles everything from jail magistration arraignments on class c tickets all the way up to jury trial which has been fun all of that has been fun with in the middle of pandemic to make sure everybody stays safe so that's us okay and do you want to you want to introduce yourself say anything no okay great so so and how do people catch up with the outside is that if they want to know what a municipal court judge does or reach out and kind of learn more we stole the judge from fort worth he said he's a true asset to our community his family's great so if they wanted to reach out and learn more how do they do that yeah so we do um like school visits and and discussions and colleges and schools uh throughout north texas um go out and talk to people and so if if they have a specific ticket in our court just call us and we will help them resolve it or log into the website all options and rights are are listed on the website too for individuals so and then and you do mock trial work on work volunteer stuff and it's it's amazing so thank you for all you do okay so here's the oh let me let me do this i'm gonna try to make sure i can see the words i look down i was like oh man that's really small here we go now it's better got it now i can see it okay it says uh mayor by pardon me mayor of the city of diton to all whom these presidents shall come greetings whereas more people citizens and non-citizens alike come in person and personal contact with the municipal courts than all other texas courts combined and whereas public impressions uh of the entire texas judicial system is largely dependent upon the public's experience in municipal court and whereas municipal judges and court support person personnel support personnel have privilege to be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality rendering equal services for all and conforming to the standards set by the canons of the judicial conduct and whereas municipal courts play a significant role in preserving the quality of life in texas communities through the adjudication of traffic offenses ensuring high level of traffic safety for other citizens and whereas municipal courts serve as a local justice center for the enforcement of local ordinances and fine and fine only state offenses that protect the peace and dignity of our community and whereas municipal judges and clerks continually strive to improve the administration of justice through participation in judicial education programs seminars workshops and annual meetings to their to their state and local professional organizations and whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishment of the 916 texas municipal courts and salute their critical role in preserving public safety protecting the quality of life in texas communities and deterring future criminal behavior now therefore i gerard hutz with mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim the week of november 1st through november 15th as municipal courts week and further extend appreciation to the dent municipal judges and court court support personnel for the vital services they perform and their exemplary dedication to our community and i i call upon all residents of denton to join the city council in recognizing the vision the vital services they perform and their ex exemplary dedication to the communities they represent if you give them a hand ryan's not here okay well very good we caught it on the big camera okay well here we go all right thank you very much thank you pleasure to meet you all right next up is arbor day okay so if y'all could introduce yourselves and tell us what we're here to celebrate i recognize heywood morgan urban forestry parks department city of denton this year for arbor day well first of all before i get to that i'd like to wish everyone early happy arbor day this year for arbor day we're going to be planning a total of 200 post oak seedlings yes you heard me right post oaks when i first moved here i was told you can't find these in the nursery you can't find them anywhere well with a little perseverance i was able to secure a source of post oak seedlings so we'll be planting 170 of those this saturday and then we'll plant another 30 as a mass planting and recognition of 30 years as a tree city usa here in denton want to say anything carly and we'll do the planting with the help of volunteers and i'm carly weld i'm the program and volunteer coordinator for keep denton beautiful in the denton parks and recreation department great thank you very much gary yeah gary pack and director of parks and recreation just really like to thank all the staff's efforts and the community's efforts to uh help grow our urban tree canopy uh and plant trees and really volunteer on various all aspects of the department so thank you very much thank you uh and i was that was interesting to know that most of the tree canopy growth has come by way of new growth and so that was really it's not preservation obviously but also a lot of new growth so that's that's really encouraging uh so here we go let's see so it goes uh to all whom these presence shall come greetings whereas all across texas from towering pines to majestic oaks this the scrubby mosquitoes the many trees of texas are beautiful and prominent featured of all unique and breathtaking landscape and whereas texas we texans we value our trees and benefit benefits they provide us with each day benefits like clean air clean clear water improving our health and even saving us money on energy bills that's very important and whereas we encourage people in our community to plant trees and celebrate them on the first friday of each november on texas arbor day and whereas texas first observed our day in 1889 under the leadership of the texas forestry association and whereas this holiday for trees is is an opportunity to teach fundamental lessons about stewardship of our natural resources and caring for our environment it is an opportunity to learn what each of us can do to keep our community community trees healthy and vibrant it is a time we can pause and appreciate trees in our lives and whereas together we can create brighter and more beautiful a brighter and more beautiful future for the generations the next generations in turn can affirm the duty of protecting our natural resources by being responsible stewards of this great land and now therefore i gerard hudspeth mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby proclaim friday november 5th 2021 as denton texas arbor day and urge all citizens to support efforts to care for the plant and care for and plant trees for the betterment of our community for this and future generations if we can give him a hand and one more it's salvation army they're here great hey how are you great good to see you good to see you okay yeah okay well i'm captain whitney with the salvation army here in denton texas and i just wanted to give you guys a few things of what's going on we are going into our kettle season which is exciting you might have seen us on at every christmas at like wal-mart or croakers ringing bells this is our biggest fundraiser of the year and and i'll let you know what the money goes to and what the money goes to and what the money goes and and i'll let you know what the money goes towards it this year this past year we've actually been able to do 36 thousands of grocery bags for our people here in denton we've done 37 000 prepared meals that's community dinner that's dinner for our clients in our shelter we've done 250 000 in financial aid due to covid the crisis has risen so the financial assistance has gone up as well so that's a lot of funding and it's a lot of help to people who need help for monthly payments and all of the money that we do we raise it through christmas we do get federal grants but we have this is our biggest fundraiser of the year and we need help so i want to encourage everybody if you're interested if you would like to ring the bell you can do it with a costume on you can do it with a a pet we had a guy with a his pet ring the bell he was amazing and his dog was just asleep the whole time it was really quite funny but we encourage anybody and everybody to support because all the money goes right here it stays right here and then to help the people here and then and we want to keep helping people as much as we can because our theme this year is hope marches on and we really want to be a part of that like we believe that hope will march on here in denton county in denton texas even through the covid season we still have this we can still do this and we need your help thank you thank you appreciate it and when is the the kickoff is that the kettle you want to share that sorry uh the kettle kickoff is actually going to be at golden triangle mall so if anyone's available likes to go shopping meet us there at 10 30 am which i guess is an early shopping time but we'll be there we're going to be there we're going to have the kettle the mayor will be there as well and just to kick us off we're actually starting on the eighth at hobby lobby but on the 10th is when we'll start at the mall um on the 20th is when we start at walmart so you'll start seeing us gradually in places um so we'd love to have you there on the 10th of november at 10 30 also uh the mayor is going to be a special part of this he has doing a mayoral challenge on november no sorry december 11th so he will be at the walmart on university so if you're excited to see him you can support him by dropping off some dollars in the kettle or go online there's also going to be a virtual kettle so if you can't go to that walmart you can go online to our website find his kettle donate it because he's competing against other mayors so it's going to be really exciting and we really appreciate the city helping us with this yes thank you very good appreciate it yes by me i am so sorry uh we also do another program called angel tree and this year we have almost 900 kids that we're helping have christmas and denton record chronicle is actually helping us with that as well by giving us space to do our warehouse and our needs so if you guys would like to volunteer you can also go on to online contact us we need help putting the bags together getting the bags together for the families because we're going to start getting the donations in soon and our distribution day is on december 18th that's when the the gifts and the toys go out back to the family so just letting you guys know great thank you thank you very much it's exciting so it says to all whom these presents shall come greetings whereas the operations of the salvation army are supervised by trained and commissioned officers who proclaim the gospel and serve as administrators teachers social workers counselors youth leaders and musicians these men and women have dedicated their lives completely to to service and whereas indenting over 600 people of all ages volunteer the time talents and resources with the salvation army to assist in the work needed to meet human needs without discrimination there these volunteers are critical partners and in helping fulfill the promise of a promise to americans america of doing the most good and whereas the salvation army provides important services to the community including a food pantry meals and shelters for men women and children experiencing homelessness and financial assistance to help families pay rent utility bills and whereas these services are provided free of charge to the people who are served this is made possible through the financial support and local citizens who give through various channels including the salvation army annual red kettle campaign and whereas to eat to reach their red kettle goal of 90 000 for this year's holiday campaign the salvation army is seeking volunteers to fill more than one thousand three hour shifts as bell ringers the the average volunteer bell ringer brings in over fifty dollars an hour for the cause and now therefore igerard hudspeth mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim the 2021 holiday season as the salvation army rings hope marches on in the city of denton and urge all citizens to go to register to ring.com and pick a day time and location to volunteer as a bell ringer for the salvation army between thanksgiving and christmas if we can give them a hand. Okay now we that moves us to presentations from the public we have five in person one on the phone so the first is eli and i don't want to say your last name it's a g a w u eli eli going once okay we'll see if they show up a little later next is uh stefan uh last name dylan our dylanberg looks like d i l l e n b u r g uh mr mayor he just called and said that uh he does not wish to speak tonight he's going to schedule another day okay thank you very much for that update appreciate it that takes us to uh mr josh joshua hatton yes sir and he's on the phone i will transfer him into the meeting now okay okay and he should be there now mayor okay if you uh mr hatton yes yeah if you could give your name and address you'll have four minutes to speak thank you good evening my name is joshua hatton my address is 1414 auburn drive denton my thanks to the city workers who have facilitated my participation in tonight's meeting miss willborn and mr birdseye i'm a member of the organizing committee of no bus cuts denton we are 20 people from 10 different labor unions and our petition on change.org against the dcta bus cut now has over 900 signatures my presentation this evening will have two parts slide number two please first i'll summarize our workers plan for public transportation which we are asking city council to adopt and champion at the dcta board of directors meeting on december 2nd then i will discuss the terrible safety record of via corporation's go zone vehicles the ceo of the dcta acting as a mouthpiece for via and city council's responsibility to do its due diligence on the via go zone contract and require that the dcta do the same the dcta is in crisis there is strong popular opposition to its plan to replace its bus routes with rides in via's go zone minivan a mass resignation of dcta executives was announced right after the approval of via's go zone contract in july there was a sign of corruption when one of those executives was hired by via just a month after the contract was approved this council removed the chair of the dcta board former denton mayor chris watts after he promoted the interests of via corporation over the will of the people of denton the situation at the dcta appears to be hopeless there is however a way out of this crisis it's our workers plan for public transportation slide number three please our plan has three interconnected parts cancel the contract with via for go zone keep the bus routes and include the community in a new participatory process to decide the future of public transportation details on our workers plan are available at no bus cut stenton on facebook and twitter the second part of my presentation focuses on the danger that via's goes on vehicles pose to our community slide number four please there's a growing number of community reports on social media of dangerous and illegal activities of via goes on vehicles these include stopping to pick up or drop off in the right hand lane of university drive where there's no shoulder and speeds exceed the 40 mile per hour posted speed limit going around lowered railroad crossing gates and getting pulled over by unp police the dcta admits that via goes on vehicles were involved in 10 collisions and got a police citation in only their first six weeks of operation however when the dcta ceo reported these shocking statistics to denton city council he stated that the figures came not from the dcta but rather from the contractor via we can't be expected to simply take via's word for it when it comes to our safety city staff should verify the contractor via's reports by getting the vehicle's license plate numbers at the med park station lot where they are parked at night and then checking them on insurance claim and police databases additionally city staff with gis computing skills should acquire the locations of via's goes on vehicle stops and compare these with denton's no stop traffic zones to find out how many violations via have gotten away with by number five please no bus cuts denton urges denton city council to adopt and champion our workers plan to cancel the contract with vehicle via keep the bus routes and include the community in a new decision making process we also call on council to do its due diligence regarding the safety of dia's go zone okay um i i do have a question or a request so i i did visit your your change.org site and i was able to sign up um using a california address it defeat defaults to a denton address and so i think if there's something you can do to actually uh confirm those denton addresses versus a defaulting at a minimum i think you should change the form so that doesn't default to denton so that it's not misleading by chance on accident and then two if there's a way for you to to turn on some sort of uh location device so that someone in denton i signed up as in california someone in california can sign up is there in denton so if you have control over that to the degree that you can um protect your data and and the names that you represent live in denton that would be compelling uh or whatever you can do to clean up that list that would be fantastic so just wanted to to share that uh as feedback as i did uh visit your site councilman orator yes i just wanted to say uh thank you uh no bus cuts denton for your plan i got the email that you sent to all of council earlier today i had the opportunity to read it to read it i agree and support with your support your recommendations be happy to uh meet with you um and uh ask some questions uh hear your questions and uh would love to represent you on this either by putting it forward as a two-minute pitch or if another council member wants to do that then you can count on me uh expressing my voice of support for uh for your plan thank you okay any other questions great thank you very much um that takes us to um see and i'm going to get this wrong um is it stanton or step what is that oh there we go thank you thank you thank you uh if you can give your name and address then you'll have four minutes uh yes my name is you guys hear me yes sir now i got you uh my name is stanton brazier and i live at 13 finley circle and crumb currently all right um so thank you guys so much for uh letting me come speak tonight and special thanks to deb and paul and chief dixon uh for all the discussion and insight that they've they've given me um so i've been a long time uh didn't resident up until recently when i moved to crumb but i assume i'll be back someday um i have a bachelor's at uh unt a master's from twu a family man with three kids i've owned businesses in california texas uh currently starting one in oklahoma um and i'm also a felon for selling weed here in denton uh the reason i tell you this is uh for two reasons actually one i'd consider myself an expert in underground markets legal markets um and the culture of cannabis use um and two i wanted to spell some cannabis stereotypes um when i sold here in denton i had lawyers medical professionals uh educators child care workers engineers entrepreneurs artists laborers construction workers mechanics cooks cashiers a published comic book author with epilepsy and yes also to plenty of the stereotypes um i mean you always got that one guy that's like hey man you know so um but the thing that i pulled away from that is i could tell a hundred stories hundreds of stories about people who had uh debilitating issues that would come see me for relief um and it makes me think of this lady named peggy she was in her mid 60s she was a cashier a low-wage worker and uh one day she came over to my house after leaving the hospital and she broke down crying she had an inoperable brain tumor so of course i gave her free weed for the rest of her life which was only a few months um i often wondered when her or other patients like her would leave my house what happens if they get pulled over are we going to pull a 65 year old cancer patient out of their car search it with the dog search their purse put them in handcuffs take them to jail strip them search them make them sleep on an uncomfortable bed with a scratchy blanket no pillow that's inhumane to me and i know that i know chief dixon wouldn't allow something like that chief dixon is is a really good guy but chief dixon is probably not going to be here forever and on paper the police have the power to do that and i don't think there's anyone in this room that would want that to happen and more than half the states in the country have a medical program including texas that means texas does see this as a medicine even if our laws aren't quite where they need to be um so decriminalizing cannabis here in town for the decriminalized ordnance would effectively protect our most vulnerable but at the same time it will protect young people as well college students uh if you get arrested for cannabis you can lose your financial aid it's hard to get a house even after getting your bachelor's degree it's hard to get a job uh we could literally take a step in that direction take that away and protect our youngest and our most vulnerable um on top of that this is a bipartisan ordinance because it would save us money in our prison our jails and our court system um it gives police less power to racially profile people of color which there is a disparity we have a nine percent black population but almost an equal amount of cannabis arrests um so that would you know instill some uh public trust and uh let's see yeah i think that's all i have in my notes sorry um but yeah so uh i really hope you guys can support it i really appreciate uh you guys having a work session about it and i think that we could make some good steps thank you so much thank you very much i appreciate it all right and next up is heather moss hello hello if you can give us a name and address you'll have four minutes my name is heather moss my address is 3616 Montecito here in denton i would like to address the redistricting of the um city and i believe that the finding of the taxpayer paid assessment um from the consultant was that it was not required to redistrict under the one person one vote principle i think that we should trust those experts that did that assessment um also that it is not under it is not over the 10 percent that is required for redistricting i think that we should save our tax dollar money since it is not required and i would ask that the council not spend any more of our tax dollar any more of our tax dollars to redistrict that is not needed at this time and take the consultants um recommendations at this time okay thank you very much i appreciate it okay no questions and that takes us to our our last uh speaker eva eva maybe greco and she's on the phone yes sir i will send her in now eva are you there yes i'm here great if you could give us your name and address you'll have four minutes to speak eva greco hello yes hello eva greco 802 west oak street apartment five in denton um i just wanted to speak i've listened at the last few meetings um regarding the mask ordinance um after the council went out of work session i went to northlake's rec center to vote two of the workers were not wearing masks and there was a sign completely there everybody can see it and a box of masks at the front door according to denton city of denton the ordinance da da da so i had said something to the two workers about you know you're not wearing masks and one said he didn't understand what i was talking about the other one said we don't have to there were also two female workers there that were wearing masks and i let them know you're being disrespectful for your fellow workers here and the one gentleman just kept saying you know i don't understand what you're saying repeatedly and the other gentleman just kept telling him to ignore me so we have this ordinance and i know you can't answer questions but what are we doing to enforce because everywhere i go i see more people without masks than wearing masks so how do we follow through on this and that's all i have okay yeah i will ask staff to follow up with you and they can give you the where we are but i'll just tell you we you are correct it's it's not being enforced um and we're but i'll give staff can you the full answer answer your questions that sort of thing but but your your point is valid okay thank you so much for hearing me and so good night everyone and so whoever uh steward if you're there if you if you can make sure we have her email address and and we can send her just kind of some standard information yes sir we thank you awesome okay those are the comments is there is there i think we have space for one more or two more if there's any did anyone want to speak that didn't sign up you just need to you can speak you just need to fill out a blue card okay great thank you all very much that takes us to our um consent agenda and we did not have anything pulled i'll take a motion some i don't see the councillor maguire i move approval of the consent agenda as presented there's no button on the screen to thank you councillor davis second thank you we have a motion by uh councillor maguire second by councillor member davis for the consent agenda um please vote on the screen or discussion any discussion any seeing none please vote on the screen it's not popping up yet okay we'll just we'll kick it old school uh councillor back house you aye um councillor maguire aye councillor orator yes uh mayor putty melzer aye councillor berg aye councillor davis aye mayor hutzpah aye passes seven zero uh and uh for those following along on the agenda we're going to go into our public hearings but i wanted to let you know that the items for individual consent have been there's two uh under that number six section of the agenda those have been removed so if you're here for those two those will be rescheduled uh what's that for the ninth but but we will have the three public hearings tonight but then the individual consent items in the section six have been removed so we have three items remaining on tonight's agenda and i'll call the first work session pardon me public hearing which is item a c pardon me z 21 0011 d hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding a change in the zoning district and use classification from residential two to zoning district to a general office zoning district and i will open the public hearing ron thank you mayor members of council gave me second to pull in the presentation okay one second try this again there you go sorry about that bring this to the top okay again mayor members of council this item as introduced in the introduction is for a zoning change request for a property that is shown here outlining yellow the request as again mentioned in the introduction is to go from r2 residential 2 to general office initially the applicant submitted an application to go from r2 to li during the planning and zoning commission there was some discussion about having li and having more intense industrial uses in this particular area so the applicant amended their request formally to general office which is a little bit more conducive to what would be allowed in the area primarily commercial but there would be some light industrial allowed but very more a lot more subdued than li so that is what is being brought forward to the council for your consideration the planning zoning commission again heard it a second time now considering the go they recommended approval recommends approval for the general office zoning change request seven zero i'll just quickly weigh background the property in 1969 part of the strip annexation was annexed into the city then in 2002 it was zoned agricultural and then in 2002 when the city went through a city-wide rezoning it was owned in r2 and then in 2019 again the city entered into a city-wide rezoning and this property transitioned to r2 so again the current zoning is r2 the parcel is currently undeveloped the applicant according to the applicant their plans for go is really to market the property for some industrial use maybe commercial depending on what they are able to obtain there is no development or use proposed at this time by review of the criteria for approval per dentin development code specifically section three sorry two four five e as well as two seven two d of the development code the proposal is consistent with the goals and policies of the gem plan 2030 its proposal is consistent with the geo purpose under the ddc the zoning that is requested is not expected to generate significant adverse environmental infrastructure or physical impacts utility and infrastructure although not there yet can be extended to serve the subject property at the time of development notifications were met notification requirements such as posting of signs there were two neighborhood virtual meetings held there were four individuals that participated in that neighborhood meeting newspaper and website notices were also published mailing notice were also sent out from those mailing notices we did receive one in opposition and that property owner is this is sort of off a little bit the property owner is off to the side right here on trinity just as it turns towards fish trap road that's where the property is located there is there was also response for in favor this property owner although is not a city i just want to illustrate that that property is just to the west of the subject property so again one in opposition and one in favor of the one in opposition does not generate enough area to garner a supermajority so just again a simple opposition with the um with the analysis of the planning zoning commission recommends approval again for the geo 70 staff recommends approval with this zoning change to geo per those section of the development code and with that i'll stand for any questions and i believe the applicant uh representative is here if you all have any questions for her got it and do you have a presentation as well great so questions for staff and then we'll take the the other presentation councilmember armature uh yeah a couple questions um so number one uh you mentioned here that they're still intending on some industrial use so i don't understand if they are intending for an industrial use why they're not requesting light industrial why and why they can request a general office sure so the light industrial zoning district allows for light industrial uses that can be manufacturer impacts that that are a little bit heavier or you know more intense the geo zoning district also allows for light industrial but not as intense so there's there's some differences in the geo and the li in terms of light industrial uses so just because it's light industrial doesn't mean that um it has the same uses that you would you think of a light industrial it could be a light industrial use with a heavy intense um in type of development or type of use but there's also light industrial uses that are low impact and so that's what they're thinking that they can market under the geo okay thank you um i just haven't seen that come forward before light industrial use under general office um can you give me just i don't know just a couple examples obviously i can you know look in the code but you know what would be an example of a light industrial sure use that would that would not be allowed under general office and one that would that would be allowed let me uh let me pull up can you pull up what we had in our backup yes yes that's that's what i was trying to do um and i actually have a presentation or part of the presentation that might be the best way of doing it and just bear with me maybe this one here one second here we go sorry i just had to make sure these texts are really small and i'll go ahead and share it so you can see so um manufacturer so the whole title here is industrial uses and you can see under the geo and the li p is permitted um obviously if it's blank it's not permitted and s is permitted with an sup so uh as an example under the um the one i want i automatically go to is the manufacturing low impact and we have a we have a definition for that under the geo it is permitted it is also permitted in the li so you can see that those two zoning districts allow for the same use but then when you go to the heavier impact um you do have um uses you know the use is permitted by specific use permit as well as the li so that's just another example that would have to come through the city council another example would be if we were to look here outdoor storage is an example it is not permitted in the geo but it is permitted in the li so there are some differences between the geo and the li specifically by the use types that you know you're you're wanting to develop okay and and thank you so i was familiar with this but i didn't know i just figured that those allowed under geo were not considered light industrial it's just it's a semantic difference right it's just the name of the zoning district but there are light industrial uses yep okay thank you and then my other question was about um the notifications um so the the one notification for and the one notification against um where did they also did this those same uh property owners uh register support and opposition prior prior to this yes so yes the the the one in um the one in in opposition um was involved from the very beginning in fact he was at the planning zoning commission and i can i can tell you that um that person was also in the neighborhood virtual meeting so he was in involved in the process from the very beginning um i believe his concerns were traffic and land use similar to what any you know one would you know be concerned with in a zoning change request um the one in opposition was some more recently um i'm sorry in favor that is uh came in more recently and they are actually a business or a property owner that's just to the north that is not in the city but i believe their current use is sort of like an industrial light industrial use at this time okay and so so they are not in the city but they're within the 500 feet correct and the property owner in opposition is within the 200 feet correct okay thank you councillor in back thank you mr mayor so ron help me understand how could you for the for the audience in the dais can you pull up the um the future land use map please okay i don't think i have a future okay well that's that's fine as i understand this is uh this is r2 and red and zoned um uh rural for this area of the fringe and um there isn't any um light industrial or geo in there this would sort of be an island if we allowed this to go so the future land use map i mean it says i mean i know that to some degree we we tend to use rural in our fringe as somewhat of a placeholder but this is actually the fringe this isn't like leftover infill where we've we've got it um uh left behind um so i guess can you can you help me understand the finding sure that it uh that you know we said in the end of the packet that it falls 245 e uh and 272 d where as i read the ddc 3 and a of those sections say follow the comp plan and this absolutely doesn't follow the comp plan at all right and i've got um a response that if if i can share my screen again um just to give you some illustration of what uh we were thinking as far as our analysis so bear with me here and i'll pull that up so so you're absolutely right this area is further down on the east side of the city it is currently um designated under our future language map as rural areas but we know that this area is not going to be rural in the near future we know that i 30 i'm sorry 380 is going to be changing it's actually supposed to be widened by text dot there are activities that we see coming in this direction you see that this purple here i'm sorry this light blue is currently zoned light industrial the area in red was something that our request that the council approved i guess it was a couple weeks ago to go to light industrial so we see a trend moving towards the east in this case this area here to light industrial that's probably why the applicants initially suggested light industrial however based on again the planning zoning commission discussion and their you know you know their request to find another zoning district they they being the applicant chose the general office but again back to your question we feel that this area specifically along this area of 380 will likely change in terms of the type of land uses and part of our comprehensive plan amendment or comprehensive plan update we're looking at this area to be more of a light industrial or something similar and not rural area rural residential rural areas in the future so that is something that we're looking at amending part of our plan update if i if i might though that that's part of the content public access and decision for council you know the combinatoric of the public and council for that and and one of the reasons i'm going to push back lightly is just north of there is etj residential and just south of there is is lakeshore so it's it's challenging for me to believe that i mean yeah there probably could be some you know light retail which the applicant could request at any time to come back i mean in the application there is there's there's like no use this is a marketing use so there's not a specific use in mind and i'm personally loathed to to uh change the comp plan from neighboring residential um right around this area so it feels like you're we're not matching 245e and 272da okay and any other questions for staff seeing none if the applicant wants to come up you have uh 10 minutes aside or 20 minutes total share your screen and if there's anyone in the in the room that wants to speak uh you just need to fill out a card it is a public hearing good evening mayor and council amy bissett 97 land company 109 north elm denton i appreciate being here this evening i will attempt to answer the questions that were asked by council member beck and council member armentor as i move through this but please feel free to restate any questions that i don't cover during my presentation so i do want to start by giving you a little bit of history regarding the original request to planning and zoning commission and how that conversation evolved over the course of a couple of meetings and the my client is the current property owner of this property and they are on the phone so if you have specific questions for them i i they do not have a presentation but they are here in case we do need to engage them so they have acquired this property um when when they put it into contract they knew immediately that low density residential was not an appropriate long-term use sitting right on the highway so um they they do want to market it for a commercial or um light industrial meaning probably a very small scale warehouse and distribution or retail pad sites they are looking at a number of uses there when we first began the zoning change process i looked at the entire corridor and as you can see if you look at loop 288 on on the far west end all the way up to just a couple of parcels from this one the the majority of that corridor is zoned light industrial so that was our initial zoning request because it was the most consistent with the pattern in the area and we know that this location is not appropriate sitting on a um six lane divided highway for low density residential so um as ron shared the the purpose of this zoning zoning change is um to entitle it for future development they are looking for an appropriate zoning designation that makes sense on a busy highway and the marketing intent is for office retail pad sites or warehouse and their intent here is really to be able to develop or to to develop to city standards so this parcel is bisected partially within the city limits and partially within the etj and they want to conform to city standards and have been responsive to planning and zoning commission's request for a change in a zoning designation and there are industrial uses that surround them in the etj and they could build industrial uses in the etj portion of their lot today but they do want to come and conform to city standards and have been highly responsive to both staff and planning and zoning commission to date to find an appropriate zoning designation so we did do some neighborhood engagement and we did hear from a number of neighbors and what we really heard from them was they were concerned about who has jurisdictional authority in this area whether it's the county or the city and we did talk about how if the development were to take access off of highway 380 then they would be taking access through the city of denton meaning that they would conform the entire site to city of denton standards they had concerns about whether or not the developer would be required to extend water and sewer from the west which of course they would at the time of development and they had questions about the possible land uses and tenants and they had concerns about traffic and access from trinity and fish trap i want to point out here that the highlighted in in green parcels are those landowners who were participating in our neighborhood meetings as you can see most of them are in the etj but we see that they are mostly especially on the east side they are larger individual single-family property owners and on the west is a an industrial use that is sitting in the etj today so we did hear some significant feedback from the planning and zoning commission at our first meeting with them they were concerned about this whole corridor developing with light industrial and the visual impact that that has on the gateway into the city so one of the reasons that for the change in the zoning request from light industrial to general office is that general office is a commercial zoning designation and not an industrial zoning designation therefore it any commercial zoning designation has to comply with commercial design standards which is an elevated architectural and design standards that are better for this particular corridor and the you know just the visual impact coming into denton the planning and zoning commission was also concerned about additional industrial zoning next to existing single-family homes so we do see a lot of industrial in that corridor but there are some single-family homes that surround this particular property and so they asked us to consider geo or suburban corridor zoning and my client felt like geo gave them the flexibility that they needed but also restricted them to uses and design that would have less impact on the neighbors and then finally and they were concerned about the traffic impact to 380 and trinity we all know that 380 is intended to be the most intense traffic that comes through denton and with whatever development does come in in the future a traffic generation analysis would have to be done and any road improvements to mitigate for that traffic at that time right now it's a little hard to predict traffic when we don't know exactly what would be going there so when we did look this is my last slide i'll be quick um when we did look at what what zoning district should we request instead we looked across the entire corridor of highway 380 and found an example of um a pattern that had been set by during the city-wide rezoning specifically you'll see this is on the west side of 380 and you'll see this site again later tonight and the other one of my zoning cases um but you've got ranch estate which is single-family subdivision to the north here and the city um intentionally made a zoning designation choice of general office directly on the south side of 380 to provide a buffer between the industrial uses and the single-family uses so we felt like that a precedent had already been set on 380 for an appropriate zoning designation um abutting existing single-family and that's why we selected general office so i do want to make sure that i answer um council member armentor's questions about um the differences between geo and li they do have a lot of similarities in terms of the land uses but they the regulations within geo um automatically lower the intensity of those uses and they do eliminate some of the more intense uses and the geo zoning district requires the elevated design standards that makes it look and feel more like commercial uses even if it is for example a warehouse or distribution center they'd still have to look and behave like commercial uses and as it relates to the flume and um council member beck's question i you know what we were the conversation that we've had with the city all along in this corridor is that low density residential is not an appropriate land use in the future and that they see this whole corridor changing in terms of how the how the flume is going to change in the future i hear your point completely that that hasn't been adopted yet but that's that's the direction that we've been operating under and with that i'll be happy happy to answer any questions or cue up um the property owner and my client to answer questions as well council member davis got a tacky question for you okay um all in how much does it cost to rezone a property like this you've got city fees you've got engineering stuff you've got someone like yourself who doesn't appear for free all in how much does it cost somebody to rezone um depending on how long the zoning case takes you're looking at probably fifty thousand dollars thanks councilman beck so amy can i ask you is this one parcel or two parcels it is one parcel that um it when you look at on cad it looks like two parcels but that's just a line that was drawn in cad to determine taxing jurisdictions okay so so this may be a run follow-up question then but i thought that our revisions to our um recently recent revisions to our to our um pre-planning uh regulations required us to require annexations for pre-planning and other planning exercises for parcels in the etj to match um um our very city requirements didn't we just change the rules to that i'm sorry councilman beck can you say it won't i'm trying to understand the question regarding didn't we just say that we weren't going to do planning and pre-planning for etj parcels unless they voluntarily annexed into the city didn't we just change that rule we're not considering a property that's in the etj it's currently in the city but but this is one parcel correct so so we're we're going to have we're going to have mixed zoning on one parcel if so if the property to the north um becomes part of a development that is something that we wouldn't have to consider but right now all we're analyzing is really the southern lot that's being considered as part of this zoning request so so even to councillor davis's point we would probably have to come back and revisit this for zoning requirements anyway we might as well get this right at some future point rather than muck around with it in a partial sense now especially when we don't have a use coming in so i guess i'm a little confused on all these sort of conflicting issues on that right no and when when we met with the applicant we did discuss that additional that that property to the north as part of a annexation bring it all one time and do one zoning at one time but they were not interested in doing that and they just wanted to zone the property that's in the city so that was a discussion we did have early in the process so so since i have you ron if i might mr mayor the the example that was used um was this property uh this residential area out in westgate which which i think honestly let's let's be frank about this this is a continuous problem because we're we're developing westgate and yet we have this residential region that we have to be aware of and constantly protect and take care of having a residential region inside an industrial region and and the ramifications that that's leading to as we develop so i'm a little loathe to create another mixed residential industrial area until we have a concrete use that sort of makes sense again this this feels like a lot of of carts before not very many horses so ron if you could pull down the slide presentation and then i'm going to open the door for you to speak to i think there's a misconception that needs to be cleared up for those following along so every zoning case that we that comes to us they don't have to discuss the use right i'll my words not yours i'll let you fix it but then also unless we stipulate in the in the language they're not tied to any use that they present here they can change at any point you know and so anything under the use category is in play unless it's restricted by by at the day is here so it's not my opinion not unusual but i need you to give it your technical talk so that i just don't want people to be confused that this is somehow unique every zoning case we get this is that this is what we face no one has to tell us what they're going to do some opt to and that's their prerogative but some choose not to that's their prerogative neither of which should be punitive but that's correct so just to just summarize real quickly uh zoning change is just that it's a zoning change and whatever use that's under that allowed use table that allow that is allowed into that zoning district is open for development um some developers some applicants provide a use but sometimes they never go through with it um and sometimes they do but not most of times they don't so um what the council needs to look at is what uses are allowed under the geo and if that uh list is appropriate for this particular property because it will be one of those uses um and unless it is restricted to a particular use all of those uses that are allowed under geo would be permitted okay so any other questions uh seeing none councilmember armature you have the you have a motion uh yeah i wanted to move uh denial and then if we get a second to have the discussion well okay is there a second not yet so i'll close the public hearing councilmember beck i'm seconding the denial okay great so we have we have a uh a motion to deny a second by councilmember beck discussion mayor pro to melter yeah i'm very interested in the discussion and i'm open to being uh persuaded i'll tell you my real preference it would be if the sequence of events was that we finished the comp plan and then we have these cases you know but uh that that's soon but not here yet i mean should be we understand by the end of the calendar year but not here yet and i'm i'm i hate these situations frankly where uh it you know very clearly doesn't match the future land use map and then we have a sort of a discussion on what's evidently true usually i'm i'm resisting a characterization of you know what's there is sort of destiny but i i do i'm just sharing with you i do find it persuasive that the way 380 uh is now and is clearly going it's really hard for me to imagine that that is residential uh uh so you know when you think about what what what might it even be clearly commercial uh this doesn't strike me as you know out of the scope of possibility if it were sort of uh adjacent to the green belt or you know a heavily treed area or something where we saw it had uh kind of value in terms of natural resources and would be part of you know that uh kind of analysis i might feel differently but i'm not seeing that so i'm uh i'm really asking to be persuaded right now i i think uh the case seems reasonable that's just my you know it's just uh it's just true councilmember davis thank you mayor no mayor pro tem just did the analysis it's never going to be residential uh we did the property owner disservice really when we picked r2 back in the early 2000s we did ourselves a disservice when we did the strip annexation back in the 60s it wasn't really the best decision then and here we are with a piece of property that uh has been uh hay cutting and cows since the 60s and since before then and it doesn't have any other purpose to us other than uh we expect it will develop to some commercial use i agree with mayor pro tem's analysis of by process of elimination you get down from what uses are uh are going to produce the highest and best use of this land and go fits the bill it's a very appropriate buffer um it's very appropriate because it brings in the commercial design standards i don't know exactly whose brainwave that was to go from li to go but i think it was the right call um whether it happened at pnz or whether the developer and staff came up with it together whoever did that kudos because i think they hit on kind of the the secret recipe for this particular parcel and they've been very transparent about what they're doing they're saving their buyer fifty thousand dollars they're making it a more marketable more developable piece of land and and i don't have a particular problem with in this instance putting this car before the horse with the future land use map because it's just apparent facts on the ground that this will not be rural residential it's not going to develop r2 and why don't we give the market a chance to develop it into something more useful for us i'm going to skip councilman orator i'm going to skip you councilman becky both spoken a few times councilmember McGuire thank you mayor um i i think the question here is you know do we want to pursue a compact land use pattern or do we want to pursue sprawl um you know it's true that we did recently rezone a nearby parcel but i i think that was a very different situation um the the nearby parcel that we recently rezoned was predominantly r6 so that rezoning was a little bit of of damage control um you know it might be the case that that 380 is is developing um but if we are going to be a a city that pursues compact dense land use i think we have a responsibility to resist that and not just acquiesce to it um and and i i just i can't see any situation in which rezoning this to li or geo um wouldn't result in um more people using cars to travel well beyond the the core of the city and that's i mean it's it's just urban sprawl so i'm gonna i'm gonna i have not spoken and so i don't know what to say i'm shocked this is unbelievable we have people in the city in the center of the city that live on 380 that are asking us to mitigate against road noise right now just to the east one block to the east of university tw as a matter of fact it's the president of the university her house is on 380 and asking us to mitigate against roads and road noise it is absolutely unconscionable that this stretch of 380 would be anything other than commercial because any residential person would have the same problem exacerbated by that distance and those speeds and that widening that's coming and this is just i mean it's terrifying that we wouldn't see well first i think it's important to note it's not a news flash that the private industry moves faster than the government right so it's not a shocker that we can't update our comprehensive plan faster than people can develop that's not a shocker and but if we would focus on that right we focus on a lot of other things and i think that's to our detriment versus vision and those sort of things but we get caught off on these other things and it takes longer to update the comprehensive plan and then people want to develop their property or sell their property but then to sit here and say that they've gone through the process one let's let's i'll take council member davis's numbers that's 50k they're coming back again let's say that's another number maybe it's less than 50k we're talking 100k whatever the number but then to say that we're going to ask them to come back again because we don't think it's time yet or because too many people drive cars at the same time we're talking about text odd it's going to widen 380 for more cars it's just unbelievable i mean i truly i'm shocked uh and and i'm i'm terrified of the message this sends and so i'll conclude with this you know i think we we stunt the growth of and the development of the industrial segments that then pay for our city to have the things that we have residential doesn't pay the bills no that's undisputed and and so um and then you look at the property directly across the highway and somehow reconcile that differently it just sends a terrible message uh i'll have the applicant back up before we we uh vote to hear her thoughts and their thoughts but i'm really shocked that we're here and and having this robust of a conversation about a segment that makes i i agree with council member davis it's the best future use we can come up with and we and by i think description we can't make it should not i guess some are willing to we should not make it punitive that you don't know what you're going to do with your property because that's not required there's nowhere listed where that's required so that's an undue burden on an individual landowner that then sets a dangerous precedent and absolutely opens a door for for things we don't want and i think they have a valid case uh so uh we'll see where we end up council member vett thank you mr mayor i i think the uh the thing that we need to think about here is um that uh regardless of of what the are partly because the mobility plans are changing people ask to be convinced um partly because the mobility plans are changing and partly because we have residential to the north and to the south of this region is a is a geoli kind of designation the right transitional buffer from our future mobility plans so you know you could you can make the argument oh well you know i i need to have something for for noise reduction although i i think that's a bit specious because that's here at locust and elm and and here at tw not out here on the fringe but at the same token um it's not cart before the horse because we could think of mr or other mixed use residential uses that would allow for an a residential adjacent appropriate use and light industrial general office appropriate use at the time that those things want to come in and so if you're asking for an special exception to our future land use our comprehensive plan that's specifically against 245 e3 and two services and 2da then then you're asking for an exception and so therefore i think it's incumbent on us to have an idea of what the use is going to be because that's then going to tie the hands of our comprehensive plan updates because we've zoned it for that we you know it's it's a fait accompli this is the the time to make these kinds of decisions about whether to follow the cop plan is before we've changed artificially the cop plan okay councillor marmotor uh yes i i agree with council member beck's concerns very well worded i just wanted to say just a few words for the reasons why i moved to deny since up until now i had just asked some questions in addition to what council member beck has already said i want to just note the difference between description and prescription right now we've got a zoning that describes this parcel as it currently is and this is a rural area the cop plan matters this designation matters the future land use map matters and and has this area as rural because it is rural residential because it is rural these predictions and expectations while i i understand them and it's tempting to make them they're just that predictions and they can become self-fulfilling prophecies when they're based on future expectations of you know what's coming our way in the distance versus what is right there now and that could be really dangerous for smart growth in denton we've seen this time and time again it's a phenomenon that that i have sometimes referred to as a living room parking lot phenomenon where somebody asked to park a car in your living room you say no this is my living room it's not a parking lot and then they get permission to park their car in your living room and you say okay just this one exception then the next person comes in and says well i want to park my car here too and you say no this is still my living room and then someone says well this next car would make a good this is just an analogy the next car would make a good transition from domicile to parking lot so in other words you know when we make to back up what what council member beck said when we make decisions like this based on expectations there and you know ideas of transition that really aren't transitioned but radical changes our predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies and and it's it can be very dangerous and that's why i vote no thank you member to melter yeah i i truly uh i'm not attempting to win an argument i'm i'm really hoping to lose this argument and i'm and i'm listening very closely uh because i respect my colleagues opinions and uh you know i'm i find myself surprised to not share some so uh i just want to make an observation and ask a question it's it's definitely rural now i mean there's nothing in it it's not residential there's no housing in it the uh just the point was raised about wanting compact dense development which is i would if you woke me up in the middle of the night and said do you want that i would say yes i want that to me if you put housing there that's going to that sprawl that's leading people to live there and have to drive to everything else because nothing else is by it if you put something like geo or you know commercial that's something that leverages the traffic that goes by there it's not it's not making an outpost like if you talked about you know mr and mixed housing and so on you're kind of making a you're making a a satellite that then has to correspond to all the commercial that's in the town so so help me out here how is that not sprawl to make it residential which is what it's currently zoned as and and it has no residences on it so that that's that's my question if anyone wants to take it up i'm truly listening councilmember davis thank you once again i agree with an excellent point from the mayor pro tem if if we're going to consider sprawl in this argument if we're going to say that giving them this zoning is sprawl then really what we're saying is that to prevent sprawl we need to discourage use of this land for any purpose and that is very different from encouraging proper use of land or encouraging dense development or other better ways to discourage sprawl rather than telling a landowner we're going to through a series of policy choices drastically constrict what we think is appropriate there really what you're saying if you're trying to take this property into the sprawl conversation conversation and saying it should not develop at all and that is not appropriate for a zoning case to say that a piece of property that's not our choice to make that's the market's choice to make if it's not a piece of property that's in in private hands i also take issue with the comment about radical changes the highest and best use of this parcel is probably something like the green belt office park that's just to the to the east of it its other closest neighbor is a temporarily open alamo fireworks and its other neighbor across the street is the shingle mountain that is just outside city limits so to think that this parcel is going to develop into some kind of you know walkable suburban corridor or something or other it's just it's just not the fact and the future land use map here i understand the the argument that we ought to hue to the future land use map as much as we can but we got that land use map wrong we got it wrong when we made that designation for that corridor based on what was in that corridor 10 years ago 15 years ago the to use council member armenters well-worn analogy we've been parking cars there for decades this is not rural in character it's suburban fringe along a highway something or other it's not really rural in character that's just a strange designation that we've given it on an incorrect land use map councilman bird councilman davis thank you so much for that because that is what has been in my mind here it just let's just look at the practicality of this of this particular property it's on a major thoroughfare there are many uses going on in that area i agree with councilman davis in that you know apparently we were in the mindset 10 years ago that area certainly doesn't look the same it doesn't have the same feel and with all of those activities that's going around it it doesn't in my i would i would go along with this i'm just going to say that i would definitely vote for this because of of the direction that it's going already in anyway on that area i can't see residential neighborhoods just popping up out there in that area like that if they were they would be down of you know a different type of road fish trap behind those areas but coming out on a major thoroughfare highway like that this seems like a very appropriate opportunity to use it you know in the fashion that they would want to use it so with that being saying i'm sure i will be voting for it mayor if i can just interject real quickly it may have already been discussed indirectly but just want to mention that the future land use map is just one part of the comprehensive plan there are other goals policies and new actions in the comprehensive plan that we also look at and two and you know when we did the comp plan back in 2013 2014 right that area was obviously we see a trend and we have the ability to make you know changes you know as part of the confine update but you know in advance of that we can also document those changes those trends and and support our recommendations just want to mention that okay and do you want to before i ask the applicants come up do you want to speak to the these sites that keep getting mentioned i mean again i'll i just want you to be heard on them because you are a subject matter expert to a degree on on these things and so i just want to have you on the record as far as the sites and the in the your analysis of those two sites that keep getting mentioned so yes um the the sites that you know i'm thinking you're referring to ranch estates yeah well no no so the site the the code sites that keep getting that mentioned that somehow we're violating those and so i want you to have an opportunity to speak to that on the record right right so similar to what i was explaining earlier you know those sections are regarding approval of applications that come in but there's also that second site or section that refers to zoning case requests and there are approval approval criteria as well and so there are a number of those criteria listed there and one of it of course is that it's consistent with the comprehensive plan now again as mentioned earlier the comprehensive plan is not just the future land use map it's other sections or other chapters of the comprehensive plan there's also the ability to you know look at the future land use map and see if it's inconsistent there's an ability to you know look at what it is today you know we have new things happening you know today than what was before so the trends that happen are that are happening now can influence or can inform that um that you know criteria for approval as well so those two sites as the mayor mentioned reflect some of the comments i mentioned earlier okay if the applicant wants to come up be heard and then we're going to move towards a vote thank you i appreciate the opportunity and i'll be very brief i want to make two points one i do think that this rezoning is a protection to the neighbors those neighbors are in the etj today and the property is partially in the etj and could develop today with no regulatory authority from the city of denton they could have industrial across the street in the etj by rezoning to geo and conforming to the city of denton criteria for development they will have a nicer development opportunity there they are not here in opposition we had one person here in opposition at the beginning at the first planning and zoning commission meeting i called him afterwards and invited him to have a conversation with me about other zoning opportunities and let him know when this project was going to be coming back to planning and zoning commission again and what the zoning designation would be he's not here to speak we have had multiple conversations with the neighbors they do understand that this causes the city of denton to be involved and regulate what goes there and they like that they would prefer to see that over unregulated development within the etj secondly i do believe this is smart growth for a number of reasons that you all have already talked about you want your residential neighborhoods compact in your city center with neighborhood services you guys see me regularly i represent large economic development and industrial projects on a consistent basis we try to find sites that are not in the middle of the city of denton so that we keep the traffic outside of the core of the community and we have some separation between our residential communities and our industrial and larger corporate campus type users so when we look for sites we try to find sites that are on highways that are not desirable for future residential growth um my client is on the phone i think that they are still not wishing to speak but if you would like to ask the question mayor just to give them the opportunity if they do want to say something then um you're welcome you're welcome to do that but at this point i don't think they are wanting to so sure okay yeah so we will open that door because we're going to before we vote i want to have an opportunity to be heard so if if they're on the line and they care to add something to the to the conversation they're they're welcome to do so and i'll give staff a minute to seph are you are they online by chance and have they given an indication whether they'd like to speak i believe mr flowers just unmuted himself yes uh mr mayor uh council members thank you for the opportunity to speak yes sorry so give me give me one you would like to speak is that what you said uh i don't necessarily need to but i'm happy to if you would like to have me no so just so i think we're i mean i if you want to i want to open the door for you too i'd need to open a public hearing again because i closed it but i'm happy to do it but if if not then i'll just um we have one more speaker then we're going to vote uh there's nothing i have to say that amy hasn't already expressed much more eloquently than i could okay thank you appreciate that uh councilmember armature you've you've spoken a number of times look quite great a bit more than everyone else so but i want to acknowledge recognize you briefly before we vote thank you uh just yeah briefly i just wanted to answer uh mayor protem's question i'm not sure if it will convince him but um i see your concern you know about sprawl i mean you're right a very dense neighborhood here wouldn't uh bring a lot of traffic and sprawl um but rural uh the rural designation uh it means uh that that it would not be dense um that that uh that there could not be density there uh so uh that is that is my answer you know that uh low density uh and so no sprawl in this area an area of relief okay very good uh so any other discussion seeing none this is the motion to deny vote on the screen okay so we'll do it uh so again the most this is the motion to deny yes means you want to deny it we'll go uh oh here we go vote on the screen that fails four three um i'll take a motion councilor davis i move approval is there a second council member bird thank you there's a motion by council member davis second by council member bird to approve any discussion seeing none let's vote on the screen that passes four to three thank you very much appreciate it good luck on your project that takes us to item b in our public hearing which is uh pd 21 0005a hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding a change in the zoning district and use classifications from residential to uh district to planned development district approximately 22.2 acres of land generally located east of bonnie bray street approximately 198 feet north of west windsor drive good evening good evening let me pull up my presentation good evening i'm julie wyatt senior planner with the city of denton and i'm presenting pd 21 0005a the request before you is to rezone about 22 acres from r2 district to a pd district with an r7 base zoning this is to facilitate a horizontal multifamily living use the proposal includes 230 dwelling units and that includes single family and duplex designs and they are designed as you've kind of seen these horizontal multifamily uses with other projects and that they've got the private backyards with the shared open spaces the subject property is on your screen outlined in yellow it is on the east side of bonnie bray just north of windsor just to orient you to the site there's there's a lot going on in this area first of all i want to point out this this red line so it's about three quarters of a mile from the commercial district there at bonnie bray and university so it's within that walking distance to some commercial centers there's also a variety of residential uses in the area we have a single family residential to the west of the property also to the north being developed we also have some more compact development residential development with some town homes as well as some multifamily to both the north and the west of the subject property two other things i want to point out we've got some institutional uses with education den high school is developing just west of the subject property outlined in blue a unt also has a site to the northeast of the of the site as well as one of our regional parks within the city north lakes park with its variety of recreational uses is just to the east of the subject property this was presented to the planning and zoning commission and they did recommend approval of the request five to zero so as i mentioned the current zoning is r2 district i won't go over all those zoning districts surrounding it but it is consistent with that development pattern we've seen that variety of of residential uses commercial uses to the south as well as those institutional uses they are proposing that pd that would be that extension of that existing r7 to the north of the subject property and as with any pd it includes both development standards as well as that development map as i mentioned that development standards is based upon our r7 zoning they do have kind of baked within the proposal some reduced parking because it is on a on a bike pedestrian corridor that's being developed with bonnie bray and the units are as i mentioned those single family and duplex units oriented toward those public or those central courtyards and interior walkways with that 15 windows and doors on the front facade so we'll look at the development map briefly to sort of orient you to the site so it is north is this direction so bonnie bray is at the bottom of your screen the park north lakes park is would be at the top of your screen and the proposal does include 425 parking spaces also community amenities there is a clubhouse with a pool also a dog park and then and then some central courtyards scattered throughout the site they also have screening along bonnie bray with shrub screening as well as tree plantings on the south side of the property and then screening along that park entrance they do have five pedestrian gates something that we did talk about with them because it's next to that regional park we wanted to make sure it was really porous for develop for pedestrians so that there were plenty of those pedestrian access gates so residents could could walk out to the park and not have to drive that they could they could get out there with a different mode of transportation and so they do have those those pedestrian gates throughout that site the criteria for approval in a pd is in sub chapter 2 of the dent development code staff has analyzed the request and and is it is consistent with that criteria for approval it's consistent with the future land use map those development standards that they are proposing do create a a compact development pattern with a residential character those pedestrian connections do allow that access to that existing regional park as well as that a larger bike ped network that's coming in along bonnie bray and there is adequate capacity to serve the development i just want to talk briefly about the comprehensive plan den plan 2030 does designate this property as moderate density residential the intent of moderate density residential is to facilitate residential developments about four to twelve dwelling units per acre the the development standards include compact single-family neighborhoods as well as it can also include low-rise multi-family dwellings and and town homes so the that's sort of a moderate middle density and it also wants to encourage a variety of housing styles types and prices and that it should be located near near neighborhood services or commercial centers and so when you look at this area when you look at this future land use map you can really tell that that is that moderate density residential is is centered kind of between this this regional park to the east as well as commercial centers these nodes of commercial that we're anticipating at windsor and bonnie bray and then just to the north so it really does speak to that development pattern the proposal does conform to the future land use they are proposing 10 dwelling units per acre as it's designed it does meet that compact neighborhood and it is also close to that existing and future commercial public outreach was sent out we've received one letter in favor and then one in opposition at the planning and zoning commission and as i mentioned the planning and zoning commission did recommend approval of the request and staff also recommended approval as it is consistent with the the criteria for approval i'll be happy to answer any questions and the applicant also has a presentation as well okay questions for staff then we'll take and then i'll open the public hearing questions for staff councilmember bett thank you mr mayor um yeah i i appreciate the sort of compact development um that they're proposing here i i had a question in terms of am i understanding sort of the access elements in in their it's not their their their pre-plan as it were um like i guess it's pd so um it's the full plan but um are we is that just a turnaround in front of the fire station or is that an exit in front of the fire station there's like a little t junction near the fire station property they do have a pedestrian gate near that fire station property to connect to that because bonnie bray will have that bike ped corridor along there is that is that what so so there's there's going to be a pedestrian access through the end of the road out to winzer but but not an automobile maybe i mean let's not talk against each other do you have your map uh yeah let me follow from the presentation sure because otherwise i think we'll just both confuse each other let me find it okay do you do you have the plan map there it is that's it yes so on that east side that the east side is or sorry that's the south side the the south side blank spot which is the right of the figure is the is the fire station and just there's a little t there is that going to be um pedestrian access to winzer is it going to i mean what's the plan for that is just a turnaround it is just a turnaround yes sir so this is kind of that fire station property and let me see if i can get to an aerial that might um so that is actually park property just to the south so it would not connect through so we're not going to put a sidewalk or anything in there as they're as proposed they do have a little pedestrian walkway along that southern property line and that they do have those pedestrian gates to allow pedestrians to access the park in that location but vehicles would not be able to access the park and i'm glad you brought that up i'm just a little unclear is that is where the the circles the dotted circles are yes are those pedestrian access points okay next to the dog park and next to the corner all right and so the the the north entrance is going on to the existing sort of soccer field access road whatever the name of that road is you're exactly correct yes sir um i guess my last question probably is for the um for the um the applicant but i'll telegraph it a little bit so that he can prepare an answer when it's their turn to talk and for those two detention ponds would they be because this is adjacent to a community regional park would they be interested in or would the um it be in our ddc for them to approve the detention ponds to actual sort of um more biological architectural features rather than have a detention pond next to a park uh because we have a lot of nice features in that area and it would it would just fit in better i realize that's asking a developer to do more rather than just have a detention pond but like you know something a little nicer because we're up against an adjacent park uh and trying not to ruin sort of the way it fits into the uh bonnie bray area sure their engineer is here and i believe can maybe answer questions regarding any um ice swim requirements or water quality requirements with the the detention ponds um they also um and i'm speaking off of memory here um the detention pond especially to the south of the of the development it does have those trees around it so it will provide that that landscape buffer um kind of screening that detention pond but their engineer engineer is here it could possibly answer any questions regarding water quality all right thank you so much councillor armater uh so there's a lot that i i like about this um it makes sense to me to have a rural residential of low to moderate density in this area i also really like um the idea of you know kids in this neighborhood walking over to north lakes park it's a you know a great example of our um 10 minute park plan but instead of making a new park um it's you're putting the people right next to the park and you know that's something that north lakes doesn't really have at least no not to this extent um my question is you know why if you could explain uh and maybe this is something that the uh developer can speak to as well you know why have this be a a pd r7 instead of just a an r7 or maybe to put it another way you know what is possible with the pd and their proposal that would not be possible if it was just r7 that is a great question um so this horizontal multifamily living is really kind of a new use for the city of denton and we don't have that within our code requirements so um these projects that are horizontal multifamily living because it doesn't quite meet the definition of what we see as multifamily um has to go as this pd um it is something that we we could potentially look at as as i know pnz has asked us is it something we need to add to our code um as part of the definition and the use tables but really the pd is the only vehicle we have right now in the toolbox in order to facilitate this type of development okay and thank you that that makes a lot of sense that was my guess it was the only guess i could think of um you know i'll just say that um uh i i like the idea of horizontal multifamily living and it coordinates with our idea what discussions council has had in the recent past about about zoning uh and planning uh for design um instead of so much for for use um so having uh uh you know people when people think of multi-family they think of these you know giant vertical structures and it doesn't have to be that they can look like single-family homes uh and and that's what you've got here so anyway that does make sense and that answers my question okay an applicant has a presentation yes sir all right great they'll have 20 minutes okay good evening mayor and and council thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present our case i'll make it really quick i know you've seen some of these other uses beforehand i'd like to just take a moment to tell you a little bit about our organization and and speak more on how we differentiate even from the the other you um developers that you've seen and presented to you previously um give us your name and address yes sir my name is Felipe Castillo this is Jessica King with with urban moment my residence is at 7303 Campbell Road Dallas Texas we're a texas-based uh real estate developer that solely concentrates on this what we call the missing middle single-family rental uh a little bit on where single-family started it actually started in the tucson arizona area in the 90s and it grew in popularity there and our our founder is yes ma'am over there okay um our founder is one of three developers have expanded from arizona into the texas market another fun fact there we're also the second developer that actually has fully constructed fully leased and fully stabilized communities that's i bring that up because that's important to understand that we've had some time to understand our residents and we've also had time to understand the communities that we're in and as we're expanding to new communities of which we hope then is one of them we're tailoring to what we know our residents are asking and both our communities themselves so i'll i'll walk through just really high level and then miss king will go over um specifically the site itself uh missing middle you you likely have heard this uh but it generally it's our residents fall in a category where they have options and they have options to either choose not to buy homes or they're saving up to buying homes but they they have the option to not stay in traditional multi-family this gives them the best of both worlds allows them an opportunity to you know save and and move into a residence of their own some choose not to but what we have noticed in our own residential communities the very large percentage of them are choosing to stay here because they are looking to be residents of denton and this gives them that that bridge opportunity for that that point what we've also learned from our our existing communities is we have a good amount of what i would categorize as critical workforce heroes in our kyle community we have several teachers there we have a nurse and in our good night location we have a fireman and a couple more nurses and teachers so we we've learned from this and we've taken this kind of too hard as as an organization we have reached out to the different communities that we've come into but specifically didn't and reached out to the isd and the neighboring fire station and we're going to try to do the same thing with the police department and what we do is we create a program that allows them an accelerated vetting period and additional you know free rent to emphasize we want them in our community and we were really excited in this situation because of the isds that are going to be next to us so we've already made that contact they were very welcoming and and we're looking forward to having further discussions on that really simply we have we're texas-based as i mentioned we have sites in dallas and austin san antonio and in we're just entering houston generally this will be our fourth site that we break ground on if we get past here a zoning i have a quick video of one of our locations and i'll talk through it this is in southeast austin this is just note the architecture was based on the master plan community that were part of it was guided by them our our community in general has one and two story cottages of which we think that's very important that's one of the differentiators from even the the folks that have presented to you before we think that leads to a nicer aesthetic everyone has a ground floor door and backyard as mentioned by julie and that that's important because that's that leads to the security of what we see in our residents our our residents are a mix but we have several single mothers and single women that a large percentage almost more than 60 percent that have become residents our community and we know that's around security and then the rest are because they have pets we have especially with covet and everything that's on there we've had a lot of pets so they they have the advantages of the the backyards now architecturally style we you saw just one and here's a few others that we've done in the different communities we try to make sure we tailor the architecture to the community it's a very fluid process of trying to find the right balance of something more modern but we call this more contemporary farmhouse and a little different than what you saw in the video and then the other thing you would have seen in the video and you definitely will hear from miss king is this part of what's i would say falls in our vein of company principles which is we try to engineer as much open space as physically possible and we do that to sensitivity of our residents and and that's what they're looking for so we purposely make areas that are for collecting and gathering and and we'll get into more on that on how we're designing that specifically in our site generally horizontal multifamily with all the amenities and maintenance taken care of for the residents we have property managers on on site seven days a week we have security and valet trash and recycling so everything's taken care of for them and last i mean this really what we're trying to bring in all btr groups are trying to bring is this this providing the sense of single-family living without the full-on expense of owning a home and we'll be here to take any questions and thank you thank you felipe my name is jess king i'm with urbana appreciate everything julie's done to get us here tonight um i've actually been looking forward to being here to present to you tonight because i'm from denton i grew up here i actually graduated from denton high school the the current location go broncos yeah go broncos right um you know it's it's not often you get to present in your hometown so i'm very happy to be here and present a project that i'm i'm very proud of so tonight i'm going to focus on the key features that make our community here stand out make a step different from the others here on this project we are providing 30 more open space than the recent build for rent projects that you've seen and we do that here on the site by providing one and two story houses and the two story houses have a smaller footprint and that allows us that two story allows us to maximize the open space across the site and so you can see that here um you know these smaller ones kind of what i'm hovering around those are the two stories that i'm mentioning and the different variations of blue those just represent different different house types the other thing that we were able to do by having more open space across the site was we were able to add in more courtyards than originally planned for and those courtyards are seen here in the dark green and then as Felipe mentioned previous is that by having these one and two stories scattered throughout the site it allows us to achieve this this nice interesting roof plane perspective and that's something you wouldn't think much of but you know as you're driving by or maybe you're looking at it from afar a neighboring community it's it's just a nice aesthetic and it's something that we take a lot of time to lay out when we're planning our sites we don't just stamp out the same site plan everywhere we go we we plan them very specific to the parcel that they're on the city they're in and it's it's important to us so here on this site plan i won't spend too much time here because Julie highlighted a lot of the things but you know this speaks to our connectivity which is very important to us because our residents it matters you know they want to be able to walk around the site and walk outside the site too so here on either side you see these red lines on the right and the left of your screen those are public pedestrian paths that we'll be putting in with our project they get people from bonnie bray all the way back to north lakes park so those will be built new with the site and then down the center of the site here with the orange and then along the back here is a residential pathway interior to the site and that will allow people residents to get in and out of the site there's sidewalks all throughout the project but these are just kind of the main ones that i'm trying to point you to to see the other things that i'll just point you to we have our amenity in the in the center and then the dog park here in the rear adjacent to the north lakes which is great because this is how you walk out to north x park as julie mentioned before and i'll show you larger enlargements of these areas in a minute but what i want to point your attention to here on the screen is this is this yellow hatched line over here this is an existing roadway it's an off-site road that's a secondary entrance to north lakes park and we will be reconstructing that road with our project at the request of the city due to its current conditions in any northern any any development that will occur north of us so we've agreed to do that as with the request of the city so uh before i go to the next slide i'm going to just kind of point your attention to just this this courtyard area because i have an enlargement i want to show you here this speaks to our our typical courtyard area which which shows this shows how we kind of treat the landscape areas around the courtyards with the different types of landscape the hardscape and then how we lay the units out around the courtyards and it provides a nice space for the residents to interact with each other and hang out also shows the backyards that felipe mentioned everyone has their own private gated backyard for their own use and and then over here what i want to point your attention to is these these pathways in between the houses it doesn't seem like much but i like to point it out because when we have this space we kind of enlarge them a little bit and we we place these nice seating nodes in here and it's becoming a nice feature of our communities and our residents really enjoying them it's just a nice space for them to say hi to their neighbor that they wouldn't generally have otherwise you know in a typical walk-up multifamily and the staff are really liking these in in our other communities as well so i always like to point those out here is the architecture that we have proposed for this project as well as the color schemes and then i'll point your attention to this this layout here at the top left this is a new new design that we actually came up with for this project at their encouragement of the city they actually asked us to city staff they asked that we develop a deeper front porch so we we took that advice and we are actually we are very excited to debut that here on this project and here is the enlargement of the amenity area and again as i mentioned before this is center to the site when you're driving right in around the roundabout and of course this is the you know leasing and interior amenity workout facility with the pool but the nice thing about this that i like to point out to people is that on either side you have it's it's very pedestrian oriented and it opens up on either side to those courtyards so it's just very walkable and a great space for the residents and at the rear on the side here you have this pedestrian pathway which which walks the residents right back to the dog park which we've placed at the rear of the community as you're walking right to the back to northlakes park so it's in a good place and it's a nice transition piece between the homes and northlakes park the last slide here i'm going to close on is at pnz we were asked to further clarify our southern boundary condition against the firehouse here so i've prepared this slide to illustrate this area and so i'll just walk you through it very quickly i've um i've added in these these distance lines from the our property boundary to the front of these houses that are closest to the fire station so you can see those here at this corner and then these units here that i'm circling the ones marked in d we've placed in this current position previously they were here where the ones marked a were and we've moved them into this position the d's i'm hovering above we moved in here at the request of the commission the pnz commission because they're these are two stories and it was it was suggested that because these are two stories sound we travel into the second floor so we moved we took that suggestion and moved them into this space and then the other thing we have done here is we've added evergreen shrubs along the southern boundary as my pointer is notating and so as i've reviewed here we believe that this is a good solution for the the commission's concerns at this corner here so in closing as a developer you know it's it's our duty to be a good steward of the land and if we aren't doing that well we aren't doing our job right i take that role very seriously um no matter what city i'm in but here on this project it's personal this is my hometown and i wouldn't be presenting this project to you if i didn't think it was a great project for the dinton community not only for today but for the future so with that i'll close the presentation and philippe and i will be here to answer any questions that you may have thank you okay thank you very much uh any questions um well counseling require thank you um i was wondering if the developer could speak to um rent levels what what types of rent are you planning to charge for the the various sizes of yes ma'am wonderful question uh we we typically it's kind of a rule of thumb we we charge 25 more than traditional multifamily and then we tend to fall about 30 less than uh you know purchasing a home the cost of mortgage and all that so and this general area will likely be in the 185 to 190 a foot range okay councillor bett i asked this of staff earlier but uh for the i mean normally i would just say yeah this this is all really really great and and i can tell you now that i'm gonna take all my sticks away because i'm gonna vote for this but um the the question i had is the one i asked staff earlier is because you're up against a park traditional detention ponds are detention ponds and and i wonder if there was flexibility in your development uh abilities to make them slightly more pondy and less detention pondy if that makes sense what i'm asking yeah absolutely does and i appreciate the kind of the question and the insight and we're currently trying to do the exact scenario that you're looking there and trying to figure out how are these detention ponds going to work with our residents but also sensitivity to bonnie bray and the fire station and everything we we've been asked a lot about the that bottom southern corner and how to how to work it so currently it's kind of a 2d 2d plan but what we are sensitive to all our all our communities is how how it's treated because it's a difference of having a a pit with a fence and it just that it is what it is a detention pond i think here there's some sensitivity around yeah i i'm gonna laugh a little bit but there's we have these pollinator um fields that are right by it you know something fun that's kind of there we're adding landscaping around it and then it's a pretty flat site today that doesn't have storm next to us so we're trying to work on how to how do you detain and drain and keep it as it is today so i don't have a perfect answer for you but trust us it is on the top of our list of how we're gonna end up treating the detention and treating the site and the surrounding area with just the questions we've gotten the sensitivities that that are there so we plan to address it for sure thank you any other questions okay um well i'll i'll i have a just a couple of thoughts and have questions so i have a thought as far as i am concerned about security from the public park right next door i mean i know you don't have a solve for that i'm just saying i just want to have a clear record i have concerns about the location people walking from a public park through your property or you know i just that there's a lot of traffic at the park that isn't associated with your resident residents and how those kind of coexist uh not saying i just i have a little concern there uh just to put out there uh i think i do take the piece that you you're maintaining the property you know so so you have that i don't think we'll have the similar gait issues we have at some apartment complexes because of your investment and kind of property maintenance from a from a company standpoint so i take a little piece with that i will say the construction of bonnie bray and the timing of this gives me a little heartburn just buyer be wary as long as you come in full fully aware that that whole street is going to be an absolute mess for a very long time yes and that's fine you know just yeah yeah no i'm just making sure we touch up check all the boxes i do have a concern also about the noise right so you have the tournaments we're trying to juice and trying to get more tournaments right next to your facility so that's lights those are those things so just whatever you can do for your residents but when they send the email saying hey you know the lights are on at night i'm like yeah we're doing great so so just as you design them you know just fully be aware we're trying to increase tournament play at that park and grow that side of our business right and so just as long as you go in again just eyes wide open yes yes and then and then uh the other thing is is a fire concern you've touched on it but i think and i'll get to another component of that but just the noise i mean it's you know it's it's two in the morning it's one in the morning it's it's probably a little and there's no the train we have quiet zones and somewhere in the distant future but the fire station that's not a that's that's going to be there right so as long as again just kind of understanding that component to staff my question is this are we doing a fire traffic plan kind of analysis because without additional traffic we have to get those out of there and that's really close and so are we going to do extra lights there at Windsor i know we're there's something in the works there at Windsor to make sure that we can turn those red trucks can get out what's our future plans Windsor traffic signaling um let me go back and check and make sure let me check the bonnie bray plan so i i i can speak to that um as far as the the functioning of the fire station and and the traffic related i'm not sure about that um the applicant will have to construct a deceleration lane um to get into their site so that is one thing that they will have to do along bonnie bray but i can go back and check on Windsor yes sir again it doesn't it we have time but my concern is that sharp jog out of that main entrance and fire truck coming out there's just not if there's nothing to stop them i'm concerned about that i mean i think we need something either even it's a temporary thing that kind of like we do here to hold people up so that they can get out uh just whatever yeah whatever we have uh and then um i'll just note that the use is another example of private industry getting in front of government creating a category so i mean i think that's a known commodity it's always going to be a challenge so so that side of the pd need to appreciate staff getting creative while we come for work towards a full solution there are long lasting solution um i do have a question you touched on this and i thank you for that so the north driveway that you said you got that street you're going to construct so currently that's just a drive up to the football fields right yes it connects into north lakes yes so what is that going to look like what is that one lane each way what are you constructing so currently it's two lanes we will demolish it and construct it exactly as it exists today for the request of engineering okay got it um all right so uh julie another note if you can let me know what that are we going to strike that or because currently it's just a driveway right are we going to make it a street or is it going to maintain a driveway i'm just curious you don't have to answer now just curious about that that drive to the north and then um just lastly have you sold any other projects you delivered developed uh no we have not okay our capital partner uh bain capital which is out of boston is a reet so we make sure per reet rules we keep them at least three years after our certificate of occupancy got it got it you know it well no that's a bad joke but there's a reet in grapevine that made the news recently a lot of guys with with jackets and letters on them it wasn't good but that's not no bad joke but okay so those are those are my concerns i don't see any other questions uh councilmember armature yes i wanted to move approval okay uh mayor pro tem melzer i'll second thank you have a motion by councilmember armature second by uh motion for approval by councilmember armature second by mayor pro tem melzer any discussion let's vote on the screen that passes seven zero thank you all very much takes us to our last uh work session item or pardon me uh public hearing and that is uh cz21 0003 b hold a public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas uh regarding a change in the zoning district and use classification for mixed youth from mixed used re regional to general office all right good evening carina moldonado associate planner the case before you today is z21-0003 b this is a 380 business park the request today is to rezone approximately 88.71 acres from mixed use regional mr to general office uh zoning district just a bit of of history on this site most of you are familiar with this as the old sullivan school property um from the 1960s to 2017 this was operated as a private educational institution the sullivan school in the past it was zoned neighborhood residential which under our transition would be a r2 designation it was rezoned to a regional commercial center downtown that is rccd in 2018 under the 2019 zoning transition this does change over to the mr zoning district that's a mixed uh regional mixed use um so the request today if approved would permit any use in the geo zoning district just as a refresher the planning and zoning commission did vote to recommend approval of this request five zero and i'll just make this presentation brief allow this information is in this the exhibit two of your staff report so just highlighting the denton plan 2030 this particular site is designated with two future land use designations on the north side is business innovation which is that light purple and industrial commerce is located on the southern portion of the property the request to the geo district is consistent with both designations as i'll describe in more detail business innovations it business innovation excuse me is intended for office parks research and development and does include light manufacturing it is often designated near commercial use areas and employment hubs as you can see in the area marking the subject site it is west of the razor ranch mixed use area the overlay it does have surrounding industrial to the south and so the industrial commerce future land use designation and that is intended for light and heavy industrial specifically west of i-35 i mean as you can see this particular parcel does meet that criteria in addition to the future land use there are other components of our uh denton plan 2030 that this site does meet in particular it is located in two focus areas um first it's located in a corridor focus area specifically university drive this is between i-35 and the western city limits as well as a travel center this is the i-35 at west university drive center both of these do designate the area for future truck related facilities and uses so the proposed use by the applicant consistent with the zoning district is for approximately 700 000 square feet of warehouse warehouse and office so this is in line with the future land use designations and the focus areas listed in the comp plan i will note that though this area does not have an existing small area plan approved for it so just jumping into the criteria for approval as you've heard previously there's several general approval criteria for all applications as well as some specific zoning criteria approval criteria in summary the project is consistent with the future land use designations and goals of dent plan 2030 the proposal is consistent with the geo purpose statement and provides appropriate transitional zoning in the area the zoning itself is not expected to generate significant adverse environmental infrastructure or fiscal impacts and the infrastructure can be extended if development were to occur on the site to serve any subject properties public outreach was conducted as shown on the screen the neighborhood was reached out to by the applicant there were two virtual neighborhood meetings that were held there is a typo on the slide it should read that one was in attendance however they did not have any comments related to the site or the proposal and there were no responses received as of today so with that the planning and zoning commission did recommend approval of the request five oh there was no discussion when this went to pnz and staff does recommend approval as it complies with the criteria in the reference sections with that i can answer any questions the applicant is also here to give a presentation okay great thank you uh councilman armature yeah i just had a question about uh gas wells nearby uh how close are the are nearby gas wells um i do not have that measurement however um and the industrial uses are not protected uses so they would not be subject to those gas wells i'm thinking i'm thinking about um residential you know i'm thinking i can understand why there wouldn't be residential there because of the gas wells i just don't know exactly how close i know they're close by councilmember davis thank you mayor um this may be a question for the applicant just just let me know but uh didn't folks have been watching this site for a long time especially since the the fires out there or the fire rather out there uh so can either you or the applicant um kind of update us on the status of the buildings that remained uh kind of the general character of those buildings you know whether they had any historical significance or or anything just so people are aware um people who haven't had a chance to follow that more closely and then also because i know i'll get the question people that are familiar with the school the Beaumont mood uh light shades that were a part of the campus out there nobody has to answer that tonight but if any of those remain if any of those have utility for the city uh if somebody would let somebody at the city know sure i can give a very brief um update on that there were at least two fires on the property one happened in december of 2020 so it was fairly recent the first fire did have significant structural damage on some accessory buildings and then the the more recent fire had more damage to some of the main structures that's the knowledge extent that i have right now so i'll let the applicant actually answer that that's in specific detail and i don't know if you want them to come up now with a presentation and answer that we have uh one more question councilman beck thank you mr mayor and this falls directly from councillor davis's uh a very appropriate questions and and and that is um you know while i think this fits in with the character the west park area uh in terms of the proposed use and new use and whatnot um i wonder if there's an opportunity here for historical marker um or other acknowledgement uh either through the city or through the applicant um of the significance of the selwyn school and its role in denton and you know that that shouldn't be an undue burden either for the city or the applicant to to note the the importance of the selwyn school to our our beginning community yeah i'll go ahead and let the applicant answer that question um and i know that um you know depending on the response i think we can get our historic preservation officer to to help answer the question about historical markers um but i will let the applicant answer that question okay see no other questions so yeah if that has a presentation while she's coming up uh i will say i caught one of the biggest catfish back there in that con and then i put it on like one of those chains and i was going to take it home later and a turtle said hey there's a giant catfish that can't get away from me and ate it and so i don't have it to show you but you'll have to take my word for it it was it was as big as this room yeah you put a a peg said this giant catfish was caught here and then a turtle ate it thank you kareena mayor council i'll be fairly quick on this but i do want to try to answer the questions that i heard tonight um council member armentor there are two gals wells that are on this very far south end of this 88 acre property they're south of the existing lake and then there is a third gas well that's on the west side of this property that's south of westgate business park so um it's actually probably closer to where the structures will be than the two that are on the site itself but they're they're all um a considerable distance from any part of the developable area of this property due to the lake which is intended to be um maintained at this time because it is within a drainage easement with the city and also has some floodplain on it and then as it relates to the buildings that remain it's been a while since i've been out there but i have been on the property and several times over the last couple years and it's extremely dilapidated as it relates to a commemorative marker related to the history of the cell one site and my client is here today he's also the property owner mr billingsley is personal friends with cell one razor and is more than happy to work with the city and with the family and with the school to commemorate and designate the historic nature of what used to be on that site and you're gonna have to tell me what it was that used to be there that you're wondering if it's still there i didn't catch that i mumbled through my mask but i was asking just somebody could let us know about the Beaumont mood uh light shades there's a bunch of them up there they're all over the uh it was a uh husband wife team that worked with anil ford on a lot of projects absolutely we'll see if there's anything left there expensive yes all right so and i will just briefly briefly go over the request we are requesting a zoning change from mixed use regional which is a high density and high intensity zoning designation in and of itself to general office and it is consistent with the future land use plan as carina mentioned and we do believe it provides an appropriate transition to the residential existing residential homes and residential zoning to the north of the site it is surrounded by industrial uses and zoning designations and originally this request also our first submission was for li zoning and the city asked us to consider geo zoning instead so that we had the elevated commercial design standards associated with the gateway designation of this corridor the purpose here is to facilitate a multi-tenant office and warehouse park and this particular zoning provides the buffer and is consistent with the geo zoning to the west here's just briefly a concept plan that is is contemplating two multi-tenant buildings and here are some quick conceptual elevations that demonstrate compliance with commercial design stands design standards and architectural elements that would be required for commercial office type uses we did hold two neighborhood meetings i have also a typo on my slide it says four attendees we had four rsvps and one attendee and the questions that were asked in the neighborhood meeting and after were from surrounding property owners that are commercial and industrial in nature so they were really just kind of looking to see what's coming here and that is the conclusion of my presentation but i'm happy to answer questions and as i mentioned at the beginning i do have my client and the property owner here as well thank you councilmember back okay great all right then any other questions or i'll take a motion and i'll say this i uh i do think that i've had a pleasure to meet the billings leas and and talk to them and understand some of the projects they've done and i i would encourage anyone to look at those and kind of they are they do great work and has been obviously in the industry for a great while and and so it'll be a wonderful addition to to our city if they're successful and and i you know just want to put that out there for what it's worth and councillor uh councillor back i'm going to motion approval because of the the all the elements that we talked about it is appropriate for the for the general usage i think this this highlights exactly the the point of not getting the cart before the horse i think this is exactly what was in the right time and the right zoning and the right position i know we're all really sad about the loss of of historical o'neill ford buildings but that's not this developer's issue that's they've been unfortunately dilapidated for a while and i appreciate the developer's um willingness to uh to put some sort of historical marker in place and recognize the the importance of the architecture in the school to the dentin community so i'll be motioning for approval councilman bird okay we have a motion uh to approve by councilman beck second by councilman bird any other discussion uh seeing none let's vote on the screen and that passes seven zero thank you very much uh that concludes our agenda takes us to concluding items anyone have concluding items councilman required no councilman well yes um i i just want to um celebrate the fact that uh the cdc voted to approve vaccines for five to 11 year olds i know i have a child in that age range i believe uh at least one other person on the dais does as well and um be on the lookout for um for denton county public health to open up that that vaccine wait list to five to 11 year olds probably tomorrow councilman armature uh yeah i wanted to extend uh uh condolences uh thoughts and prayers uh to the family and friends of tom cochran who grew up in denton was a member of this community kind of grew up on this dais uh his dad uh mike cochran was a council member um a lot of people uh knew tom i was one of them lucky to know him uh 41 is uh too young to go uh he will be sorely missed and uh his his sparkling eyes and and smile and joy of life and caring about this town and the people of this town will be with me uh and a lot of us uh forever so thoughts and prayers to the family well said thank you and uh councilor davis thank you mayor and thank you council member armature for that remembrance i want to join your comments um and on a little bit of a lighter note welcome uh the texas downtown association to denton this weekend and ask our folks anybody who's still uh watching with us to please be a little bit forgiving of the extra traffic you'll have downtown this weekend lots of out of town visitors lots of folks who are going to help they're going to go back to their communities and tell all of their folks about how awesome denton is and they're going to come here they're going to shop they're going to spend money they're going to um contribute to our tax base it's going to be fabulous so welcome to out of towners spend lots of money while you're here and um the folks who live here please be real nice to them so they spend money and come back and spend some more okay uh miss city manager um some of you may already know um scott grey who's our facilities director um his wife lost her battle with cancer yesterday at one o'clock um and so the funeral services will be held on monday at four o'clock at the immaculate catholic church here in denton um just the staff have been helping and are certainly trying to be there for scott but wanted to let you all know thank you thank you thank you and absolutely look forward to supporting him in the way we can and then i also want to thank staff for their help at the at the we set up at the county for to give away to give away blinker rings i'll give away candy to help parents fight that fight so but we were we gave away stuff there at the uh county's halloween event so that was great uh and then also uh thank staff for their help with the business awards so we couldn't have a banquet so we went out to different businesses and hopefully we'll have a post that kind of spotlights those i know they're working on videos and that sort of things you can see those businesses uh that are doing great things in our community so we recognize them so thanks everyone and congratulations those businesses and then to my my friend jen peace she does a ton of stuff here in town in town but uh she's wish her a happy anniversary uh as they're celebrating this weekend so i want to just uh give her a quick shout out she's amazing uh so with that said seeing nothing else it is 8 59 and i'll conclude tonight's meeting Thank you.