Jan 25, 2022 City Council on 2022-01-25 2:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

good afternoon welcome to this meeting at the Denton City Council it is 2 p.m. we do have a quorum today is Tuesday the 26th 2022 so I call the meeting to order the first item on the agenda is calls from citizens do we have any calls I may or no not for consent oh got it okay and then that takes us to consent agenda items and I'll note item e has been is being pulled so no need to discuss that one Councilmember Davis I'd like to pull item c for a separate discussion and vote okay is there anything in presentation wise no no no presentation I mean if staff wanted to give a kind of a brief recap or something like that it might be helpful for the public but for my own purposes I don't think we need one the AIS is pretty informative okay Councilmember Armitage yeah so I had a question about c and but I will since it's gonna since it's been pulled I will leave it entirely up to staff you know whether it's best to have that question answered now or to have it answered when it's when it's pulled for an individual item how about you if you could ask it now that would be good that way if they don't have the answer they can come back with it sure yeah so my question is that is as I recall from that work session I remember a consensus what or what I thought was a consensus to reduce the required number of attorneys from three to two now my memory might be faulty on that and unfortunately I have not had time to go back and look at that video but I noticed in the description on the exhibit one agenda information sheet it mentions that the required number of attorneys or retired jurists three is not affected by this change so that was my concern and I don't know if I can get an answer to that now or if that would come when it's pulled for individual item yes Councilmember Armitage this is Rosario your city secretary so the AIS was updated to reflect what the ordinance shows is that the special qualifications preferred qualifications would all be removed and the one requirement for the board members would be that they be residents of the city so that was fixed based on your email earlier does that answer your question yes just a follow-up question to that so there was no reduction of number of attorneys from three to two it's just that no requirement for attorneys or jurors okay great okay thank you okay Councilmember Brett just get to my notes here my apologies so okay so I have a I'll do it I have three general question on items like KM and N and this goes to sort of just our process in general not not really question about the item and that is since these are referred to one of our advisory boards and we generally have their advice in advance by voting on these items I'm just confirming that that's that's the end of that item and we that that while we will welcome the advisory board's advice on this item if they were to say be opposed to the decision of council that would just be like if they we were opposed to them in the other direction is I'm just there's no opportunity to revisit these items I guess is what I'm asking other than just bring it up as a new item our staff on board from purchasing hello this is Christine Taylor I'm not sure I understand the question if you'll repeat it I can take the question Christine that's correct we're gonna we'll give the PUB an update on just kind of a staff update on these items let them know they're approved by council but you you laid it out well Council's ultimate decision body so these these will move forward with council's direction today with this action okay thank you I just was confirming that thank you and then I had I guess I had a question about J and again not about the item that's that's the the voting item on the the closed session earlier item and I guess I my question is just generally is is the language of that I am sufficiently flexible that no matter what we decide in the closed session we can we can follow that that action yeah and this is Mac mayor and council the item J that closed session really is only here as a placeholder if you have questions so if you have questions related to item J we can go into closed session but but it was only there for that purpose unless if there was questions of council okay and and finally my only thank you Mac I appreciate that thank you and then my only real question is on item you this is the information resources contract for bang the table and and this is just again not about the specific item but about our long term three-year evaluation of our use of this platform I I'm hopeful and presuming the DIR has metrics in place to evaluate whether we like this this platform and whether it's we find it effective or not because there are another a number of community engagement platforms out there and when we're giving it a three-year contract we're sort of saying hey we're gonna we're gonna do this for a while for consistency which is good but I want to make sure that we we are about we're gonna evaluate how useful we find this platform discuss Denton is the platform as we go forward that's correct councilmember back to be clear this isn't necessarily a three-year contract with them we can stop at any time we paid a year to year what this does is give us the spending authority to continue that for up to three years but we're continuing to develop that software we only launched it last year last January so it's only been about a year and we're continuing to grow it continuing to find the best use for it we thought that that three-year time considering the commitment that we made to it over the past year that gives us a good amount of time to kind of fully use it and fully evaluate it see if we want to continue that after that three-year period but we definitely have you know sort of envisioned metrics to to evaluate that it's not sort of like we will evaluate it but we actually have criteria that we're going to be used to judge how successful platform is that's correct we are taking in metrics now but you know we only have a years worth of data so we want to continue developing it the best that we can and see if we can continue to grow it awesome all right thank you those are all my questions mr. mayor any other questions seeing none mayor just a real quick point out that you just received an item G and H there's some clarification on it for the consent agenda I just want to make sure that everyone has the correct information okay Rachel suggests in it it's just a clarification it's not really just to make sure that everyone's clear on what that those two items are G and H got it any questions seeing none okay so that concludes those questions so what I have is item C is has been pulled for a brief recap and then a separate vote everything else will stay intact and and so by that just educating the staff that we won't need to close session so we'll do away with that and carry on to our work sessions so first work session is item A which is AD and pardon me ID 211765 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the May 7 2022 general election and any runoff election if applicable including locations dates and times thank you mr. mayor my name is Rosario's and I'm your city secretary and I'm here to present the item I'm going to go ahead and share my screen thank you and just to let you know we do have Frank Phillips the elections administrator and the assistant election elections administrator Brandi Grimes here to answer specific questions on a couple of items and I'll cover them here shortly so to provide a little bit of background City Council has requested polling and voting location information to be provided in advance of any upcoming election in 2021 City Council had also requested information in the following areas for discussion during the next election cycle and those areas were vote centers as well as increased voting hours for Denton polling locations and you'll have to please excuse me I'm a little bit under the weather as you can see here the election date for so we are scheduled to order the general election on Tuesday February 15th and that will include locations with a final determination by Denton County as there is a a multi-judicational contract that we enter into with them so there are other participating jurisdictions the last day to order the election is Friday February 18th the general election for May 7th will be for the purpose of electing council members to places five six and seven place seven of course being for the mayor seat and candidates for place five must reside in either districts one or two candidates for place six must reside in either districts three and four and of course candidates for place seven can reside in any district again we'll order the election February 15th the last day to order the election is Friday February the 18th and we are set to count as the election at our May 17th 2022 meeting date and of course order a runoff in the event one is necessary for the runoff election date that has been identified as June 18th and that would be for the purpose of electing members to any place where a candidate did not receive a majority of the votes cast for that seat at our May 7th general election and if any runoff election were held then we would count as that on June 28th I'm not going to go into great detail here but you can see here the voting schedule and of course you know that whenever we order the election those documents will show the voting schedule so the recommended locations for 2022 basically what you see here are the same as what was adopted for use in 2021 with a couple of exceptions while early voting is it really district specific I did include the district that the locations are noted in there just you know kind of an FYI as you can see here for district four Robeson Ranch did was previously in district three but now falls under district four in 2021 we did use the MLK recreation center but that is not available due to a contract with Denton ISD for ESL classes here for election day you can pretty much see again the locations there were some redistricting changes to these locations and these are depicted here and of course is directed by city council if a runoff election is necessary then we would recommend that we use all of the election day locations and of course use the Denton Civic Center, Denton County Elections Administration and Vertmans as early voting locations only. Again here's the recap of the recommendation so what we ask is for you to either accept staff recommendation or identify locations that you may want to use not just for the May general election but also possibly for the June runoff again if we were to have a June runoff we could revisit the elections at that time and again Denton County staff is here to answer any questions specific to the two areas that you had inquired to last year and I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing my presentation I appreciate your patience with me thank you we'll accept any questions. Okay thank you councilor Armitage. Yes so sorry to hear that MLK is not available for early voting because of that conflict so I'm wondering and this is a two-part question one has there been any discussion with a DISD to consider moving the location of those ESL classes for that time to another location that's convenient for the people taking those classes and regardless of what the answer to that is my second question is have we looked into as a second choice having voting across the street at the Denton Housing Authority which is literally right across the street it is just such an accessible excellent location for that neighborhood and ESL classes at DISD are extremely important but I feel pretty certain we can have both voting access ideal voting access for people living in that neighborhood and ESL classes for people taking them. We did not check with Denton ISD to see if they were willing to or what it would take to amend the contract that we have with them as to a separate location but we can certainly look into that if council desires as far as using the DHA offices we would need to consult with Denton County because they would need to do a site tour and look and make sure that that building meets the ADA requirements and all of the other polling location requirements that the state is required to make sure are met in order to use a polling location. So we can certainly look at that come back and report back if you like. Thank you. Councilmember McGuire. Thank you so much yeah I would like to just express my support for Councilmember Armenter's suggestion that we first check and see if the ESL classes can be moved and if that's not feasible then perhaps look into the Denton Housing Authority because I do think it's especially important to have that early voting location in this community. I'm also going to express a concern that I expressed at this time last year that I think that it's inherently confusing to have some polling places that are open for early voting but not available on election day and in the proposed plan there are only two locations the elections administration office and South Branch Library. I would like to suggest that we add to the elections administration building as an election day location as well and for the South Branch Library maintain the South Branch Library voting location for both early voting and election day and have the South Branch Library be the election day location in place of Nelson Elementary. I think it would simplify things as far as our dealings with the school district because of course we can't you know have people going into the school on a school day and it would also just I think reduce confusion for folks who you know may see the signs driving by on Teasley see the signs outside of South Branch Library saying that it is a polling place and then they might show up on election day and find that they can't vote there. I think that consistency is important and I know that there are some folks in that area who vote every single year on election day at Nelson and those folks there might be a trade-off in terms of those folks but I think that if we want to draw new voters into the process I think it's important that we maintain consistency between those early voting locations and election day locations so I just to clarify sorry because that was a lot of words I'm suggesting that we take all of the recommendations for the early voting locations and then for election day locations we add the elections administration building and swap replace Nelson Elementary with South Branch Library as an election day location thank you. I will visit Woodenton County to see if we would be able to use their location for election day since we have really no control over that facility and right now I can't recall if there was what the issue may have been that South Branch may not have been available I think maybe we just didn't use it last year but we'll certainly check with staff and report Rosa and that's been the case in the past we can't use the elections building day of but I'll let either Brandi or whichever one takes that but we can we can we can take that off the table straight away go ahead Brandi do you want to speak to it or sure sure yeah so our building is actually in the same precinct as the MLK Center and we cannot assign a precinct to two different locations on election day and so it would be one or the other okay thank you for that clarification if it's a if I'm forced to make a choice between the two that I suppose I would choose MLK so I withdraw that part of my suggestion I'd like for staff to please look into the possibility of using South Branch Library instead of Nelson as an election day location yes ma'am Councilman Beck thank you mr. mayor so I'm not sure quite who to address this to but let me let me put it in multiple parts and we'll see if we can we can get there so as Brandi just said it's my understanding that the voting location has to be within the precinct and so we're one of the things we're trying to have been having trouble in district two is identifying potential sources which is why we sometimes have CISC and sometimes don't and it's been in and out because the library is an excellent North Branch Library is an excellent location but there's limited locations with the school of the ISD restrictions today use so I guess the with that preface do we think that the conditions of City Hall West which happens to be in D2 rather than in D1 will be sufficient to be a polling place by May no the answer is no okay well and then I guess that's that's the end of my questions thank you all right any other questions Councilman Burke I just want to good afternoon everyone I want to reiterate Councilwoman Amature's concerns about the early voting and none opportunity for the MLK Center as we know early voting is the telltale side of which direction that the voters are going so pulling that in not having that early voting space in the MLK building or somewhere close to that area is of great concern to me we have redistricted some folks over into that area some new households into that area and they will want to know where they're supposed to go I think that we should consult with the ISD and even maybe having their own ESL classes move to the elementary school right across the street so I know we're voting in the elementary school and there's education going on in elementary school so hopefully that'll be an easy conversation that we will have with the ISD but not having MLK it just serves if nothing else a bad we've talked about optics before in that community and so this is a great opportunity to bring it up again it just looks bad it always just looks so bad and it's always why MLK has to be such a deal a big deal whenever we're talking about voting we're already using our you know we're already just coming to grips with some of these voting opportunities being taken away from us as we look at it every day everybody's trying to roll back or some people are trying to roll back some of our voting opportunities and this right here at this time allows this city to seem like they're agreeing with some of that stuff and we don't want to do that we don't want to do that for our population so whatever we can do to make sure the MLK is available for early voting which is very important we get those numbers early we should do that we should put every opportunity to do that so I'm going to leave that there we talked about the optics being terrible if we don't do it and so I'm just going to stop right there thank you Mayor Proctor Melton yeah thank you you know if you're keeping track I'll align with the comments of council members Bird Armantor and McGuire good ideas I would just throw into the mix if it's helpful as you know as a question could the newly reopened American Legion senior center you know be helpful if we can't work something out with MLK but I would agree that if we you know the first option would be to try to make MLK work any other questions okay Rosa do you have everything you need yes I do answer the locations now we do have again we have Brandi and Frank both here to talk a little bit about the vote centers as well as the increased early voting hours that you had indicated last year okay well information on and let me do one more thing it's a formality I mean that I'm picking up the trend but can three more people say they want to see the South Branch transition or have staff look at that if not it's it's gonna die for no support there you go one just to anyone else not seeing any I don't I'm looking there's bird there's there's armored okay there you go thank you very much so let the record reflect that mayor pro tem supported it council member bird council member armature and that gets us to four anyway thanks okay now voting centers sorry just wanted to have a clear record Frank or Brandi good afternoon everyone yellow I'd love to talk about votes in it for a moment prior to our last legislative session Denton County was prohibited from being a a vote center county and just I don't want to make an assumption so just so everyone knows a vote center county is a county in which even on election day you can vote at any election day polling site and you're not tied to your precinct based site like we are now previously we were prohibited from being a vote center county because we are a paper based county with our voting system you had to be all electronic in the past fortunately they did pass an amendment to the countywide voting program in the last session that allows us to now pursue those efforts so my commissioners court has indicated that they are in favor of vote centers so we will be pursuing that it's a lot of it's just paperwork from our end will be some public hearings of course we'll take input from cities political parties etc but our anticipation is that we would you can only apply a couple of times a year to the state to become a vote center county so we are looking at probably making application in august of this year to be used as a vote center county for the first time in november assuming that commissioners court doesn't be past that but if that's the case then going forward from november then we would anticipate all of our elections to be vote center based excellent any questions for frank councilor armator yes thank you for that update and it's very exciting i was wondering if you could speak to what are exactly the obstacles preventing the the possibility of vote centers being available in time for the may election well there's several the main one is uh we i don't i believe we had to have applied earlier or later last year in order to be even eligible for may but even if we were with uh we have an ongoing election now we have the primaries coming up and uh it's just a time issue there's no way we have the time internally to to prepare for that application to the state okay go ahead sorry oh there we go so um so just to make sure i understand so it's not so much a uh uh statewide uh deadline issue but it's a uh staffing time issue in other words it is both i do not recall off the top of my head what the application deadline was for may but i'm positive we are we are past that thank you okay any other questions seeing none uh thank you mr phillips thank you miss grimes very much for all you do and uh especially you uh mr phillips anytime you want to take up real estate in the newspaper for me please do and thanks for helping a brother out thank you thanks for all y'all do have a great day appreciate it thank you rosa um okay that takes that concludes item a takes us to item b which is id 22141 receive report and hold discussion give staff direction regarding an update to the city of denton covid 19 response thank you mayor council ryan adams chief staff uh let me share my screen and mayor let me know if we're full screen and good to go good to go great well once again this is a brief covid 19 update and i'll be sharing duties for this presentation with bob martinez who is our new emergency management program coordinator who is on maybe week three or four so still new to the organization but not new to covid he's very involved with the county county's response in a previous position so he'll give a bit of the update with me today there he goes uh so this is our 41st uh update on the pandemic dating back to 2020 uh our last update was on january 4th where we did present an update on statistics and the transmission levels of covid 19 and an update on the 18th order of council and then today we're going to again give a brief update on uh the state of the pandemic and then uh later on in the meeting council will consider a draft 19 order 19th order of council which would extend mass provisions uh through march 31st and we'll get to that later in the presentation so uh this is where i'm going to hand it off to bob who's going to give the situational update and i'll pick it back up at the end of the presentation all yours bob thanks ryan uh good afternoon council as ryan said we're going to uh this is your public update so um starting the statistics you know our transmissions and hospitalizations remain high for benny county and city um just began our our latest surge again in december and the majority of all these cases are the from variants uh which is highly transmissible um we're seeing record numbers um highest numbers of cases um that we've seen since the pandemic started um the one positive though is that uh omicron does have a lower um death rate than delta did that we saw last year around this time so we're seeing a lot of cases but um the severity is not as high um public health does not believe we reached a peak yet um every day um this year in january in the cases have continued to go up um so we're we're maybe a few weeks before um we start seeing a deep time but uh so we are um seeing quite a bit of cases um testing remains um key um they're the county is offering testing four days a week and that that is free free to the public they do have to register online for deployment but uh but it is at no cost and then of course the community has numerous uh providers and pharmacies that are also offering uh public testing the federal government last week uh launched their website where you or uh members can go to covidtest.gov and you can order up to four uh public tests for the county so that is an option as well um vaccine update and the vaccines is still uh one of the main ways to prevent the illness um right now we do have boosters available for um ages 12 and up and that's for Pfizer and Moderna and then um Pfizer vaccine is available for those aged five to 11 the amount of time between the second dose and booster has been reduced from six months to five months so that is a change um that occurred um the last few weeks and then at the bottom there is just our epi curve um this is throughout the whole pandemic you can see we're at wave five if you look at the far right hand side of the screen and you can tell the uh how high the number of cases are next slide right our hospital report um you know our there's 118 available beds this is um throughout the whole county um not the city beds um our icd beds are about nine percent um and then our later so our usage is low it's about 30 percent um i think once again that just goes to the severity of the problem if it's not as bad it's a work with health uh graph on the bottom shows our our deaths um in the county and i can show you this to show you that you know if you look at the red you can see the majority of the of the deaths that occurred it was during the delta wave back in december january uh december 2020 and january 2021 if you go if you look to the far right you can see where we are now and we have not seen as many deaths um probably later next slide now to just to bring this to the local level these are the numbers for the city of benson um the number of active cases for the patients and recovered and deaths um the graph on the bottom is this is zoomed in um of the of the trial on top but i just wanted wanted the council to see you know the number of cases that have we've received recently um all of this is that like said that wave that's started since december and you know and we're we'll be tracking this i'm training this hopefully starts coming down so another reminder we typically bring up uh this slide in our presentations to talk about the cdc recommendation or guidelines for indoor mask use and cdc does uh state that they recommended in counties where transmission is high and those are all the counties in red so all but about maybe five uh are now classified as high transmission and in order for the cdc to set aside that recommendation for indoor mask requirements or indoor mask use uh they want things to get uh down to the moderate level which is less than 50 new cases per 100 000 as council's seen uh we are hitting at about 2 000 new cases a day uh here the last week or two so uh we will not be hitting that in the short term and this is likely to be the cdc guidance uh for the coming weeks uh and likely a month or two uh looking ahead so that brings us to our 18th order uh just an update on implementation uh of course our our declaration of disaster was extended on december 14th and that lasts through march 31st of this year and that declaration serves as a prerequisite for the 18th order uh that is in effect right now that 18th order was also passed on the 14th uh and extended uh the mask requirements that were in place uh through january 31st so here within a week uh those will expire if not extended by council through a new order uh and just as a reminder to council reminder for the public uh those mask requirements apply to city buildings kt12 schools daycares and certain commercial buildings um and i will note uh that we we did provide uh for all of our facilities in 95 masks uh for any any any residents or any guests in those facilities who who need one uh they are welcome to use one uh we have previously provided to council uh that there has been a mixed response from the public uh again due due in part uh from conflicts with uh the state and county positions on requiring masks that has not changed uh and we still have uh you know challenges in in enforcement in our particularly our parks facilities uh nothing that has not been reported to council before but we do have gary packett on the line if he has anything to add or has any questions that we can answer with regard to say our our fitness programming or any of our parks and recreation facilities uh gary is there anything that you'd like to add uh no just to reiterate we do have masks available uh we did move them behind the counter with signage at the front desk letting customers know that they are there uh we had some minor abuse of of the use of those masks so we want to make sure that they are available for everybody uh you just have to ask for them okay and so what we oh no go right ahead go ahead mayor go ahead thank you i think this is our last slide so we do have a 19th order of council for for your consideration later on in the meeting as an individual consideration item uh so again our current order expires at the end of the month this 19th order would extend those mask provisions through march 31st that would line up the expiration of the order with the expiration of the declaration of disaster and in this item later on today council can adopt the ordinance as presented modify the dates or any provisions as part of the order or take no action and if that's the case the current order would expire at the end of the month and that is our presentation i'll pull this down and we are happy to answer any questions that the council may have great uh questions for staff councilor armature uh yes so i'm in favor of adopting as presented i did have a a question uh would it be uh possible cost prohibitive in any way uh for us to make those same n95 masks available at all voting locations in the city might be a little early to think about that but since we just discussed voting locations i think there would there would be a cost to it and we can bring that back to council what that cost would be in one of our upcoming presentations uh we would just have to determine what that might look like i'm not not really able to quote what that would be to you right now okay yeah thank you very much i would love to to see some information on that i think that would be really good councilman mcguire thank you so much um so i know that i have a history of being uh perhaps unrealistically optimistic um but i'm good i'm gonna keep doing it i guess um the pattern that omicron has followed um in in areas that were hit by it before the united states you know the southern countries of africa and the united kingdom um it peaked very very rapidly and then the peak went back down very very rapidly as well um we obviously can't say for sure whether that will happen here or not um but i i would prefer that we um uh adopt a 19th order of council that's effective through february 28th um in in the optimistic hope um that that may be uh it would be appropriate to allow the order to to expire at that point councilman beck thank you mr mayor i i think we're going to see one of my my rare disagreements with counselor um mcguire um the the the the profiles out there uh don't really support that especially in in southern and western tier states um i i concur with dr richardson that it looks more like a couple months out to more like a march degradation but i'm also not going to get in front of that uh so i support the uh the direction as uh indicated by staff uh for march any other questions counselor berg uh yes i'm going to uh give my support for the march extension thanks mayor pertin melter uh yeah is there any sort of practical consideration there would be a challenge or you know make just make it harder to administer if we did go with the february 28th uh deadline i mean i'm i'm not making predictions either i'm not qualified to but uh you know just to allow for the possibility of a of a surprise on the upside that armacron crashes you know over the course of february i'd like to at least you know be open to the the possibility even if it's not a probability nothing of a practical matter we would simply bring an item over in february to for the council to consider i believe on february 15th uh would be when we would consider that uh extension through the end of march uh so it should council such use so that would be about three weeks time uh for things to look up enough for council to not want to extend it but it would be no problem for staff to do that similarly if we extended it to march and things just really turned around we can always cancel that order as well and that's just another agenda item okay i'll think about this evening thank you sure all right any other questions for staff great thank you and and uh welcome aboard uh bob thank you very much for joining us and thank you for all you're going to do now what is your title again uh just emergency response um the emergency management program emergency management programming great great okay very good just wanted to note that thank you very much appreciate your help thanks ron uh that concludes item b takes us to item c which is id 212436 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the denton 2040 comprehensive plan update thank you mayor um members of council ron mengita principal planner with development services give me a second here to share my screen and hopefully you all can see the full size screen yes thank you great um again ron mengita uh excited to be here we um have been uh waiting for this day for some time we actually started this process a couple years ago however due to uh covid the pandemic we postponed the conference of plan update and actually started in 2021 so over the last year we've been working on this update process i'm not going to get into it in detail we have ed boik with matrix who will go over an overview of the plan update process wanted to make mention before i turn it over to ed that we did have a planning zoning commission meeting which we presented this update to them on january 7th sorry january 12th that is but even before that around the january 7th time frame we uploaded and posted the update on the dedicated website for the general public to view and make comments as well so january 7th it was published and posted on city's website or our dedicated website january 12 we had a planning zoning commission and then uh today we're going to be presenting to you uh the same presentation that we did with the planning zoning commission so uh with that i'm going to turn it over to ed boik again with matrix to provide you with an overview of the update process stop sharing here and thank you ron hi um mayor council my name is ed boik i'm with matrix design group and i'm really happy to be here today to give you this uh presentation to tell you about the status of this comprehensive plan update um so let me allow me to share my screen and and there we go i believe that's in full screen for you that is thanks thank you okay so this is this is going to be a higher level update done to show you uh where we're at right now in the comprehensive plan update process uh so let me go through the objectives really quick just describe where we're at um talk about why um we are approaching it the way we are and talk about those accomplishments that occurred through um the existing dentin plan 2030 um the approach and response to those accomplishments and how we wanted to move forward and then go into and tease a little bit about what some of the updates to this comprehensive plan are so first here's the schedule and as ron had noted we've been doing quite a bit of activity over the last year to get us to the point where we're ready to provide the commission and council updates through january and february of this year and then moving towards adoption in early march of this year of this comprehensive plan update so first i wanted to talk a little bit about where we where we're coming from what what what are the accomplishments that the dentin plan 2030 has accomplished and why i say that because there's a pretty extensive implementation or action table that's part of the comprehensive plan and it talked about implementing things such as plans codes and standards and programs and i've listed several of them up there on the screen and such an economic development strategic plan there's an oak gateway area plan updates to existing plans like the system simply sustainable plan as well as initiating the mobility plan update and the park recreation and trail system master plan update both of which began under the context of 2030 but are going to align and be approved with the 2040 plan so that there is synergy and commonality between the comprehensive plan that supports the conclusions of those more refined and specific plans additionally there's several code updates and standards updates that have been done whether there's a development code updates or dark sky requirements part of the street light criteria updates as well programs that the city has moved forward on such as developing the the junction building the loop 288 building for that non-profit one-stop shelter and location as well as pursuing that 100 renewable power through dentin power so that approach i mean the uh the implementation making the plan do things um and not just be a plan on the shelf is what how we look at moving forward with the update for the 2040 plan this included um making sure that was very clear to the public that this was an update of an already successful comprehensive plan not a rewrite so we are going to take a very strategic and targeted approach towards how we update this plan that means we're going to build upon those accomplishments of the previous plan we're going to find that implementation table and try to continue to make this plan useful and just not that document on the shelf and this will carry the vision of the community forward through the year 2040 so one of the ways we did that was by analyzing all the policies and all the goals and all the strategies are within the plan we looked at the implementation tests and collaborated with staff to determine whether those items were remained relevant or needed to be revised or should be removed because they've been accomplished we also engaged with the community in may of 2021 to do a similar exercise for an online charrette where they were looking at the policies the goals of strategies and implementation of the plan and telling us telling us whether or not they believe that those uh continue to reflect the vision or should be retained for the plan so again this was a plan that was a targeted update confirming that community vision identifying those new opportunities in response to the growth of the community there's extensive outreach this resulted in over 2000 unique comments from the public we've engaged online virtually 3d virtual rooms as well as through an in-person open house and stakeholder reviews and in many other ways that we've engaged with the community so it's been a very good exercise to show that the plan is relevant it's reflective of the community value that reflects the commission and councils intense as well and is a good path forward to 2040 so again targeted update reviewing from the community vision some of the specific things that were also intended to be addressed were updates to the future land use map re-examining those land use designations some of them have been updated some of them are new many are identical as what they were before developing policies that really strengthen the relationship between land use and zoning looking to update policies in response to that recent and future growth that is growing very rapidly we want to make sure the plan is still relevant for that growth as it continues in the future in particular there was a couple of focus areas that were really looked at such as the downtown economic development growth management and really the intention here was that for downtown was to really examine those opportunities that are available to downtown and really enhance it as the heart of debt and economic development was to largely validate the work that had been accomplished through the 2021 economic development strategic plan and then to take another look at those non-residential land uses to make sure that the land use map represented where economic development activity was to be focused growth management was about balancing that preservation the open space the heritage of the community and new development and infrastructure was really to make sure everything was tied together so that if you're going to focus on these areas you could tie it all together and have a plan for how infrastructure should be brought forward and planned into the community lastly a big takeaway the big task was again revising and identifying those new implementation tasks those actions to make sure the plan was continuing to be useful so i'm not going to go into an intense detail here but what i want to show is on the right is the updated future land use plan the draft of the future land use plan that's part of the draft that's under review currently and one of the unique differences that it establishes a land use policy for all of the etjs not just within the incorporated area of denton but this is to give some policy direction and help the city have some recommendations they can bring forward for land use proposals that might occur in those areas and those areas in etj were reviewed for existing development patterns we reviewed against the nbds that are out there as well as any other developments that are occurring and land uses were associated there to try to preserve to the degree they could be preserved or encouraged rural or agricultural type land uses open space where output space is applicable such as along water courses watersheds things like that and then other changes were made to the map again like a master planning community with maybe singular designation the intention there is to the definition was refined to really reinforce that these are multi-use and complete developments that really connected to the community in many ways be it streets bikes trails park systems or development pattern helps to establish a sense of place for these areas really a complete neighborhood and not just the master master subdivision on the periphery of the community other land uses were refined you look we took a look at you know residential low and moderate scale residential and built some policies in that give some flexibility where appropriate for small scale commercial to support those neighborhoods parks and open space again has been aligned with the parks master plan update and expanded on the map and business innovation was kind of reconsidered as well about what its intention was and how that relates to other uses that were kind of getting lumped together for into the umbrella of business innovation before now there's some more that's definition and clarity about what uses could be located where and that's accomplished through the new land use designation from light industrial now i'm going to go through some of these comparisons again between these land use maps for just to show the differences that have changed between the existing plan and the current proposed draft feature land use map both of these maps the left and the right are of the same scale and you can see that there's so much more area that's been planned through for land use there's been also some adjustments and i'll go through those in detail in the next couple slides in terms of how much of certain types of land uses are in different areas in the new land uses that are identified for instance on the northern portions of denton the business innovation that was along the 288 and i-35 quarter has been changed considerably to reflect a lot of the market marketing the new developments that are coming forward give some more specificity to tracking business innovation uses to a desirable area in the light industrial where there's more efficient there is also a little change on the east side of denton on that 380 and 288 as well to reflect the existing development pattern that's occurring in that area and the types of land uses lots of small little changes in there too which i didn't highlight such as the master plan community and then the other minor changes to different land uses throughout the area on the south same thing you can see on the left the west side of this the southwest side where coal and hunter ranches has been identified now as a master plan community and one of the advantages of doing these singular land use for those master plan communities is that it reflects and responds that the fact that there is a more detailed master plan that's in place that has specific and unique land uses which may not translate directly to the generality of a proper heads of plan or the future land use map and it helps to you know not require duplicative processes to make changes to my end use as well so if you're going to make the change to the area plan that's already been through a public hearing process through council permission it's somewhat redundant to have to make that same change to the future land use map this now reflects that and helps streamline things where it's appropriate there's also some modifications around the airport in terms of land that's either designated for government or quasi-governmental use or for the heavy industry that supports the airport area that's partially in reflection of the extension future extension of the loop that will be going through that area downtown denton was modified to be a little bit larger to incorporate some of those transitional areas between the universities and the neighborhoods in the downtown core this will allow for a more comprehensive area planning process should you move forward with an area plan update for the downtown area as well as the east side of town you can see some changes to land use reflective development patterns been established in that area as well as to reinforce the need for future land use open space on that eastern corridor so what's in the update and this is just a teaser these are just some of the things that have been included in there we've there's some new land use actions or policies such as one on the top which is really focusing and creating those small area plans and overlay zoning districts to implement mixed use zoning districts and standards throughout the community some were revised and this is an example of a revised one which was each proposed development the city being analyzed relative to its projected revenues and expenditures it doesn't mean that these strategies were fully implemented or or not accomplished it just means that there's been some refinement to the language to ensure that these are actionable or things that can be accomplished through the horizon of the plan and then other actions were retained such as acquisition of land for the park dedication along drainage corridors floodways to preserve those environmentally sensitive lands provide recreation opportunities and so on those were confirmed by the community to still be valid and still be things that were part of the vision to the community and through all this outreach activity these were still useful items that should be retained as for the implementation of action items there was a couple that kind of stood out as being important to move forward and i'll go through it in the next slide as well to get into more specifics on it but there's an intention that there needs to be some development and implementation of those small area plans dentons a large growing community the comprehensive plan is general in nature the area plans will be give you an opportunity to hone in get focused on the particulars of the characteristics of those areas whether it's downtown denton whether it's those master plan communities or other plan developments or whether it's the corridor centers and neighborhoods that are identified through the focus area maps or growth maps that have been reviewed by the community and determined to still be valid and representative of the vision there's one thing that can apply this is an urban design plan it was a goal or action that was part of the original i'm sorry of the 2030 comprehensive plan and it remains to be included for the 2040 as well as the things that support those land use changes and updates such as regularly updating the code standard design guidance plans those are important implementation tasks that should be continued to be acted upon according to what we've discovered through outreach and development of this plan so those priorities short term the zero to three ones the things that can be done right away finish adopt that mobility plan and the parks recreation trail systems master plan update begin to explore and find ways to do the acquisition of that parks and open space implementation and preservation of land so getting the green space to do that acting upon the area plans and then um really all the actions in the plan are to help direct and manage growth and doing that in a way that balances growth and what was the indication for balancing growth was to make sure that as denton grows which inevitably will continue to do there's a variety of growth opportunities provided whether it might be infill of already those existing vacant parcels that are within the community surrounded by existing development but just haven't been developed yet finding ways to support that finding ways to support redevelopment adaptive reuse of existing developed areas and developed sites within the community finding opportunities to connect those developments much like i was talking about with master plan communities some way to connect the bike the ped the transit the streets the development pattern so that those new areas are part of denton and not just add-ons to them all of this is about trying to create diverse housing options finding ways for people to grow within their neighborhoods whether they're just young students in apartments moving to townhomes single-family homes and then having a variety of housing styles and types that they can support them through the life cycle of your family but this way you can hit more price points be able to take care of the housing needs for more of the community and hopefully solve some affordable housing needs that the community has lastly as part of directing and managing growth again was that cip making sure that your capital expenditures your infrastructure planning is aligned with these purposes and goals within the plan so these are some of the big takeaways priorities for the implementation that were identified through this plan and we wanted to make sure we provided you a pretty good high level understanding of where we've ended up at this point the community gave us wonderful feedback they helped us understand that the vision that was in place before still remains the vision for denton moving forward and the actions activities updates that if they could part of this comprehensive plan update reflect that now i'm happy to answer any questions you might have however i'd like to turn this over to ron as well and he would give a short presentation about some more of these details with the comprehensive plan and then after that we can get into questions but that is unless there's some questions you want to ask immediately so thank you for your time thank you very much thank you for your presentation ron yes i have my screen up and hopefully y'all can see that um thanks ed for for that summary of the update process um i felt to introduce our department introduction wanted to also mention that after ed i will be talking about some of the changes on the key components the key components that were presented to you all back on december 14th which tina fergens our director of planning presented to you all i would just go over that briefly and summarize some of those key changes to those components and after that we will briefly talk about next steps and tina will present that portion of this presentation so with that i'll go ahead and go on to my next present next slide here so these are the key components again you've seen this already the vision statement the goal and policies preferred both concept map the future land use map and designations and the focus concept area map so i will have a slide for each of these and again discuss some of the changes that have happened and if none uh explain that there were no changes so the first key component uh is the community vision statement including your backup is the existing the 2030 vision statement as well as the draft 2040 community plan vision statement there were minor changes to the vision statement as head mentioned a lot of our discussions in our input that we received from the community uh still remain valid still remain relevant a lot of division and aspirations for the city in the next 15 to 20 years are consistent so much of what you see in the 2040 will be carried forward as our community vision statement for the next 15 to 20 years some of the changes were just mainly languages and in phrases to reflect again the 2040 plan no major no major changes some just more elaborate languages to again express that this is a 2040 vision statement for the city the next key component is the goals policies and actions i'll focus on the goals and policies including your backup is a red line strike through version of the draft 2040 conference plan goals and policies what you can see in the backup is that there are just minor changes to those goals and policies mostly the changes involve updating the plans that were recently adopted some of the plans that were recently revised also to make those goals and policies more implementable some languages were added and changed to reflect that we have approximately 35 goals in total and 123 policies included in the draft 2040 conference plan the other component the next component on the list is the preferred growth scenario map there were no changes to this growth scenario map this map is our map that shows where the intensity of development will be occurring or should be occurring in the next 15 20 years as you can see much of the area that we show here is in an area mainly in the core of the city there are development activity or intensity along the periphery however the more intense areas are our centers along intersection of major arterials we do have the airport as well as some of the coal and hunter area npc the roach and ranch area as well as activities intensities that are that will happen in the next 15 20 years again this is our preferred growth scenario map essentially telling us where we want growth to occur so again this map will carry forward in the 2040 comprehensive plan the next key component ed kind of went over this in already great detail but i wanted to share again some of the purpose for the future land use map and again that is the very high level area showing where the land use that we would like to see happen in the city this is our way of guiding development applications as they come in through the planning zoning commission and city council it ties back to the community vision statement the community vision statement where much of what we are talking about is is management growth as you can see the areas where we want growth to occur is identified in some of the colors that you see there some of the expansion that ed already mentioned includes the light industrial area to the northwest as well as the industrial commerce area around the airport that supports our economic development expansion areas the other as it relates to the future language that is our future language designations this is the list that you see here three are new that that include agricultural master plan community as well as industrial light industrial that is for the most part the majority of the future language designation have minor comments or minor changes again just to reflect some of the words or input that we heard but in nature they were they're very minor however there is one future language designation that does require a little bit more discussion that is the business innovation this future language designation had basically been revised and rewritten to again address some of the comments and discussions both the planning zoning commission and the city council have had in the past year or two so with that i wanted to put this slide together this is the draft business innovation description and i will provide just a quick summary of what it is you can see it on your screen but for those that are listening the business innovation designation is envisioned to be the city's employment center it is intended to allow for a range of businesses both in terms of sizes and types from large tracks that could incorporate large corporate office in employment parks to smaller tracks that could be research technology businesses and startup businesses these business innovation could also be supported by other commercial uses such as retail hotels and restaurants residential as a standard standalone use is not allowed the intention there is that we would like this to be more of an employment center so if there is opportunities for mixed use development which includes residential then that would be welcomed but as a standalone residential use we feel that there are other areas of the city that can support those users and that this area should be focused on business of course and also mixed use development the other component of the business innovation is to provide an urban design that is compatible with the surrounding area that it is easy to be located throughout the city and that is the reason for that is to be in close proximity to commercial and employment areas around the city so that when future expansion occurs there's opportunity for economic success so again that is our draft business innovation future land use designation description and our hope is that we use this as we continue to again review development applications as they come in and using the future land use map and this description as part of our consideration the last key component that is included in the conference plan den plan point 40 is the focus concept area map this map has no change again this will be carried forward the map that you see in front of you identifies areas of the city that are key centers major corridors even special districts such as the downtown razor range university park area to name a few they are throughout the city identified our hope here is that this map will aid us in our next and future discussions as we start to talk about area plans in the future these these areas provide that future study areas that that we we want to identify in our efforts so with that i'm going to turn this over to tina fergens to talk about next steps and what will be coming forward in our upcoming work sessions thank you ron tina fergens deputy director of development services and planning director for the city of denton so like to currently address our next steps as it relates to finishing the conference comprehensive plan update process but then also talk about what our next actions would be moving forward as it pertains to implementing the comprehensive plan so as you're well aware we're on january 25th so we're having our discussion this afternoon we welcome any feedback that the council has with respect to the proposed draft plan that's before you for consideration we are also having a similar discussion with the planning and zoning commission tomorrow evening on january 26th again to get additional feedback from them we as ron alluded to previously we already had a conversation with them earlier this month and and we're starting to obtain their feedback moving forward i'm going to skip over february 6th for just a moment focusing on our work session discussions so on on tuesday february 8th we have a discussion planned with the council in a work session format to address not only the comprehensive plan but also the mobility plan to receive any additional comments or direction that you may have as it relates to the efforts that we're working on we would do a similar discussion with the planning and zoning commission again work session format on on february 9th then we anticipate that or we currently have on the calendar monday february 14th where we would have a joint work session between city council and the planning and zoning commission the whole purpose of this joint work session would really to be able to have any conversations that need to take place between the two groups particularly if we have any significant discrepancies in direction that were being provided as it relates to the comprehensive plan update and then moving forth from that we've been moving to our public hearing phase so as i mentioned earlier i skipped over february 6th for just a moment we will go ahead and publish the required legal notice in the newspaper for february 6th in anticipation of us having our public hearings on february 23rd with the planning and zoning commission as well as then with city council on march 1st and completing that adoption the adoption process and that is presuming that we do not have any significant changes to the comprehensive plan document as we continue to have these conversations throughout the rest of this month in february moving forward next slide please ron so as i mentioned our goal is to have the comprehensive plan process or the update process finished on march 1st and then that allows us to really focus on our implementation efforts moving forward and our whole focus again is on that action plan that's included in our dentin dentin 2040 comprehensive plan update that action plan again lays out our goals policies and supplemental actions that implement the goals and policies as ron spoke to and ed was more elaborate in in areas of focus but really with that is our our action plan includes efforts being taken by a variety of entities one is property owners and developers who may be looking to develop property within the city of dentin they would be do so or they would be doing so in accordance with the comprehensive plans goals and policies and any actions that we have provided forth as well as any development regulations that we have in place additionally we may have other partners or agencies out there that have a responsibility in assisting us in our implementation plan and those can be a variety of different groups but more importantly also us the city as a whole and i say the city as a whole in an organization with the implementation of the comprehensive plan because if there's one thing the comprehensive plan just does not reside with the planning department it is a total hands-on deck effort with all of the departments of the city and the organizational whole as was as we move forward with our implementation included in that implementation efforts is the periodic annual evaluation of what progress that we're making on each of our action items that basically assigns a level of accountability if you will to see if we are continuing to move forward with the implementation plan that's provided for and in our comprehensive plan so then that allows us to then really focus on a finer grain level and ed spoke to this as well as as ron and that is our next action or significant action that staff believes in moving forward out of the comprehensive plan update process is really to focus on some area plans staff anticipates coming back to council in april with having a discussion about prioritizing certain areas within the community whether that be gateways corridors specific areas whether it's northeast denton southeast denton or other areas that we might identify but having that prioritization discussion to see okay where would you council like us to focus our next efforts including with that would be a conversation that we have with the planning and zoning commission as well so they could provide their direction to you as a council and as you consider the prioritization as we move forward with those area plans it's important to understand your areas of focus and then also any timelines associated with getting those completed obviously we would have to develop project scopes in the appropriate budget requests associated with that but we but we really believe our next steps need to be the focus on the area plans and the reason for that is because again the comprehensive plan is a high level document and so it's a 30,000 view whereas that area plan analysis allows us to go down and take a slightly deeper dive maybe at the 10,000 foot level or even even further closer to earth if you will as we evaluate a finer grain and put forth maybe a refined vision for those particular areas and then even further refined action items that are that are truly specific to the areas that we are evaluating so with that i'm happy to conclude our presentation with ed ron and myself and we look forward to receiving any questions or comments and feedback from city council as it relates to our comprehensive plan update thank you thank you very much uh yeah we have a few questions i do want to ask as we go into those that we give some direction uh if if we can get the questions answered today i don't see a need to maintain those placeholder meetings because that is only just to answer questions so if those are uh if if somehow you have a dissenting opinion then you'd need to state that otherwise i'm going to ask the city manager to release those dates and so or she needs a clear record as to who is advocating for those dates and and what you want to hear on those dates because uh i don't i don't if we can get all the answers answered then we don't need them counselor davis thank you mayor uh first big big thanks to the whole team and not just uh the the folks outside the consultants but especially to our our staff planning and engineering especially um i know this is a tough process even for just an update to a comp plan over a number of years and unexpected challenges i really appreciate that and i really appreciate the action focus uh that's already been discussed today uh in the update that we're focused on action items and not just putting things on the shelf that we have some things that we want to undertake after we adopt this plan uh that'll make denton better uh just a slight bit of pushback mayor on the the future meeting dates i think uh the exception for me i think would be if there's discussion today that's going to result in some changes that need to go to pnz and maybe some changes from pnz that need to maybe come back if it's a big discussion uh then maybe we need to see it again if it's not a lot of big discussion it's just kind of clarifying our minor points maybe we don't need to see it again um my my questions are and i have a number of them my first one is i'd like to kind of put a concern out there and then hear from the team response to that can we get the future land use map on the screen is that possible sure let me try to pull that up real quick just on its own would be best but if it needs to be a slide that's okay too i'd like to be able to to zoom in on a couple places does that work for you yeah that'll i think that'll work and then if the answer requires zooming in a little bit i think i can kind of navigate around the map so i really i'm kind of torn on the extraterritorial jurisdiction because i really like the idea of planning for a future time where those areas may come into the city limits however i'm really concerned i'm really concerned about kind of over promising and under delivering there was a time where dentin was very aggressively annexing especially annexing rural areas involuntarily we don't have the legal ability now to annex as aggressively and i don't think that that certainly not the current council and probably not future councils would be as interested in aggressive annexation and if we were to involuntarily annex and go through all the legal hoops that now exist to do that i don't really foresee us aggressively annexing agricultural land land that we have designated either as very low density or as agricultural the purpose and annexation would be to bring things into the developing areas into city services to bring tax base into the city whereas these areas that right now we show outside in the extraterritorial jurisdiction as the kind of medium green and and light green we should we kind of right now show through this map that one these areas are under our control that to some extent they are but that we are going to be able to prevent development in those areas by creating this doughnut of green around the city and two we don't reflect that there are already sizable subdivisions in those areas that are muds we also don't reflect that for instance in northeast denton and i want to focus on that a little bit more in my next question but in northeast denton where we have some pretty uh pretty severe concerns very legitimate concerns about growth patterns out there we have that designated especially that extraterritorial jurisdiction area we have that designated as rural which is supposed to be you know very very low density housing agricultural and character lots of space and green space or conservation development we really don't have a way to stop a mud from coming in and and setting up shop there unless it's to enter into a water contract with them so can can you i hope you're hearing my concerns i hope i'm articulating them well enough can you help me understand maybe some ways that we can help our our people see that we are not creating a green bubble around denton with this future land use map that that is not possible for us to do and that it's actually maybe even we can reflect on this map the subdivisions that already exist the residential areas that already exist that are outside of our control ron would you like me to take that yes please okay um thank you for your comments council member davis so um yeah you make an interesting observation and and i'll admit that we as staff had a fair amount of discussion including with our consultant mr boyd on how best to illustrate the etj because given some of the feedback that we've received from council and and other groups there is a strong interest in trying to preserve the etj as open space and so it's how do we balance that knowing that there are certain only limited controls if you will that we that we have in place and and you've pointed out several things that we continue to have to to work with which includes you know muds locating without in our etj which we have limited say as as to what can be achieved in those areas particularly there are some areas such as on the northeast part of town and and we went back and forth on our discussion in this area but you'll see in the northeast part of town in the area that is between the the master plan community on the north side of loop 288 and then also the property simply that's along sherman drive our city limit lines are a little all over the place and ron's pointing to that area and ron if you can move the cursor to that light yellow shaded area so we know this continues to be an area where we have residential growth happening some of which is happening outside our etj in which we have no land use control except for subdivision platting knowing that we're starting to see some continued growth patterns in that area we went ahead and shaded that area as low density residential because of the type of development that's happening there as you continue a little more to the south into the east again another area outside the etj that's on the fringe with the residential development happening in the area so we went ahead and designated that as the low density residential but the larger northeast denton area if you will you know with the we have received input as you're well aware of council in that we received a neighborhood developed area plan for that area which the residents in that area some of which are residents that are out in the county have aspirations for a fair amount of of open space this is an area where we believe it would be appropriate to have an area plan discussion if it's council's priority to better further define as to what the growth and development would be for that area if that were to occur this would help us in conversations that we have with property owners in that area particularly those property owners that are looking to put properties under contract and then be able to have discussions with potential developments as to what could occur in that area and what the city would like to have to occur in that area because the other implication we have associated with that is being able to provide for utilities accordingly so in the area that is west of i-35 and i'll let ron catch up with the cursor the light blue shaded area again our city limits are a little jagged over in that area so we went ahead and applied some shading beyond the etj in that area in anticipation of the growth and development that's occurring or as if we have property owners that seek to become part of the city limits then what kind of development we're trying to pursue in that area so you know if it's council's desire to remove the shading being applied to the etj beyond the colors that we have shown and i should say maybe the the green shadings if you will if it's your desire to remove that from the from the plan we can we're open to that and welcome on receiving that direction because we recognize some of these areas require a better further analysis and that's where the area plan would become appropriate for that so hopefully that might help address your question it does it certainly begins to and i for one would like to see again i like that we are planning ahead for some area that may be in the future part of the city limits i i don't like that we're doing it so emphatically because we have very little very very little control over these areas and i just don't think that's publicly known for instance some of the neighbors who were part of the small area planning proposal out in kind of the north northeastern part of the city some of them are very aware of our our limitations and others are not others expect that our planning authority is going to extend to an enormous part of what they're hoping to small area plan and i don't want to give them the misimpression that we can stop some mud from coming in or certain types of development from happening so my suggestion would be to either just a much much lighter shading for the areas that are outside of the city perhaps offering two maps one that shows just city limits and in a second map that shows the etj with some disclaimers some pretty clear disclaimers i mean these are areas that are on the other side of 156 on the other side of crum and sanger where we are not going to have planning authority and this map is basically dead dead letter to development out there the other option may be my other suggestion would be to include some low density residential out there in the areas where we know there are already muds where we we've we've had those conversations and constructions ongoing now so that we don't give this illusion that there's a green a nice you know horse country agricultural barrier all around dentin where there there is not there's significant development in some of these areas my next issue related to this conversation that we're having and i'm glad that you had some in-depth conversations about northeast denton because i know that's important to this council i know it's important to the folks who live out there we have that my concern with addressing it in the way that you've described is that to the east of 428 so the the low residential that you already talked about with with ron a moment ago that's very helpful to know we have very large contiguous parcels there and we also in our mobility conversation a little bit we're going to talk about the possibility of primary arterial going through there so basically what we're saying is if we were to adopt the future land use methods in front of us and the mobility plan we're going to consider later is that we would like you to build big one acre lots we'd like you to space them out or do conservation development where they're clustered and we'd like you to help us pay for a primary arterial to go through that area to connect all these big spaced out things those two things are incongruous to me so i don't know if there's a better way i just like to hear the kind of from a planning aspect because i'm going to get the engineering perspective a little bit later how we jive those two things that we're going to turn collins into a secondary arterial we're going to turn cooper creek into a primary arterial and we're going to have a whole lot of big spaced out nothing up there to connect those things and how those things work together so that's another great question and we had quite a fair amount of discussion internally with becky's team and my team on on how do we plan for that area and in first of all this is where i would add doing an area plan would allow us to do that finer grain analysis to further assess the the designations on the roadway if those are appropriate with the development that will occur within the area if there's one thing that we know is in all likelihood development is going to happen at some point in time we will have additional development in that area whether it's development happening at at its own pace in the etj or if any of those properties decide to be annexed within the city where we have some additional land use authority so we have to plan accordingly when it comes to our infrastructure and with respect to roadways we had a lot of conversation in terms of the significant roadways that are being planned in that part of our community particularly the outer loop and the improvements that are being made with 380 and how it connects to 288 we also talked about then how do we how do we create those north south connections if you will to those significant roadways we know the development is going to happen people right now are not happy with the fact that there's congestion road congested roadways in the area or that they have to sit through light cycles numerous times so if we don't start planning for certain roadway infrastructure in that area we will continue to have those challenges so we're trying to get ahead of that in anticipation that we will have some sort of growth and development whether whether we have a more significant say with it being in the city limits or if it's just happening without in our etj but if we don't plan for it particularly the infrastructure aspect then we will set ourselves up for further significant challenges in the future so hence why you see the roadway designations on the mobility plan another challenge in that area is there's a significant creek in some floodplain that goes to that area so how do we navigate working through that existing environmental presence that's there as it relates to our infrastructure so great those are great questions and i would anticipate if we were to do an area plan for that particular part of the community then we could have some of that further finer grain analysis if we determine that maybe a primary arterial roadway is not necessary and it needs to be secondary arterial then we can mend the mobility plan map with the adoption of those area plans for that area so it's that the future and how we plan for it particularly that area is going to be important for us but but it's an excellent observation on your part and and and hopefully that offers some insight as to how we've made the decisions that we have for that part of the community thank you i i appreciate the answer i push back just a little bit and say i think the 30 000 foot place is i think this is the the correct level to address an area that that size i think um i know i put my mark down on the side of i like the green i don't like the red primary arterial and i think it's more consistent with what's there now and i think we've also had some um we've had some prior council direction when a development did come forward looking for some uh public financing uh we had some pretty clear council direction that we didn't want to see density there we wanted to see lower density moving out towards the fringe all the way out to what we used to call the rural residential so um so i i think this is the the comp plan's the time to to do that to put in some low density residential kind of a long heartly and then kind of move out from there um and at least kind of put our put our marker down that's what we want to do i mean you're absolutely right about planning the infrastructure ahead of time i just think we can make those those initial choices now especially because we have a large contiguous parcel that we know has already attempted at least once to develop as a large contiguous parcel um my next uh before we move on from agricultural and rural i'm looking at the designations and i'm wondering in rural areas uh we've replaced very low density with a parenthetical to say a minimum of one unit per five acres i'm wondering if we meant a minimum or if we needed to also include a maximum because uh we i liked very low i thought it was an apt description to say very low density but if it needed some more explanation for maximum minimum i'm not sure we've quite communicated that in the way that we have it right now and maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm misreading but that's how uh that was the impression i had when i read it we can go back and visit that and ron if you want to um provide some insight as well on this because i believe we had some discussion also in in if we need to go back and look at establishing maximums by all means we could do so councilman davis can you just restate the designation you're referring to is that low residential yeah in rural one of the one of the edits was to after the word rural we took out the parenthetical very low density and we replaced it with on the other side of residential a new parenthetical that says a minimum of one unit per five acres and so that tells you the the minimum number of houses you can put per five eight five acres but doesn't put an upward limit on it so again maybe i'm misunderstanding my maximums and minimums but i think i'm reading it correctly yeah we can go back and look at that the intention there is that it is uh the the maximum is one unit per five acres thank you um we can revisit that thank you very much i appreciate it business innovation i really appreciate the attention given to this uh y'all y'all picked up exactly what council's issues had been in the past i like that the overall area of business innovation is smaller um i like that we kind of target a little bit better one thing about the um i generally like the edits one thing about the prior designation description um that didn't make it into the new one and and maybe it's just stated differently but there was something about how there were like basically comprehensive services throughout the day that this is the kind of place where you can go to your job you could maybe have an apartment nearby if that's part of the development you can eat lunch without leaving the may the kind of overall campus that you're you're in like really a business park kind of environment uh with the opportunity for somebody to do something more innovative if the business parker as we traditionally think about it isn't exactly right for the site or somebody with the funding comes along with a better concept we have the flexibility for it i i just happen to like that phrasing about having services available throughout the day um and to me that included you know kind of a live work play concept um that's all all kind of there that's just a that's not necessarily direction i expect a lot of folks to pick up on that's just my my thoughts and then the last one is kind of specific um the acme property south of 35e and to the east of the railroad tracks we've got the industrial future use industrial commerce going all the way up to 35 along the tracks and we've already approved one good project over there that's a that's closer to 35 that is um that kind of warehouse distribution in nature um trying to think of the name of it escaping right now but i'm wondering if we can't and the rest of that property right now is is vacant they're not vacant bricks up by the up by 35 there's other there's other potential development there so i'm wondering if if it's not better to go ahead and um along 35 call that future aspirational um use the community mixed use that's around it a great great great comment i see that that we're talking about this area right here along i-35 and you're right some of the activity that we've seen recently may not be conducive but one of the reasons why that remain as is is just that the uh the ownership so but of course um we can certainly look at this and you mentioned a community mixed use to continue that along possibly along i-35 to have that that area more succinct good deal thanks y'all i appreciate that's all my questions for now okay and if you can pull down the the screen yes sir please yes and uh miss city manager i guess i see this as we get into this as almost like uh email comments from uh the individual council members before meeting right so that you maybe you can track it and then come back to us with either there was action or not to kind of expedite the conversation you know so if we go back and recap and we'll just say so here here's what i have for it by way of example for council member davis because i didn't hear an answer per se when he his his words the green bubble and staff answered but then he came back with four options that's either like lighter green option a lighter green section another section that just kind of designates just outside of the city he said or you could put a disclaimer uh saying hey we don't have as much care and control over these areas that are further out and then or he mentioned uh low density uh kind of indicator where the where the muds are existing and so there is no response to that uh and so that's something that we'd need to hear back from you need to communicate to him uh so that he can kind of make decisions going forward or so we know where staff is and other council members can give direction the other things he touched on were uh mobility concerns he used collins street heartley obviously is one yes that i didn't see an answer i hear an answer for uh rural residential obviously the comment about uh where the limit is is very low density minimum one per acre one per five acres but that maximum was the question then business innovation was a question um the the not a question but the the language from the older version so it was uh um comp is a comp service throughout the the day something around that language you know you can go back and get it exactly and then the acme property uh yes kind of what staff decides to do there as far as a what if i understand ron's answer that it's due to the ownership and and probably existing gas lines etc etc but just a definitive position from staff to give the other council members something to react to would be good what we are mayor we're taking good notes and then i think what we'll do is take the notes go back and let staff uh work through them and answer them uh thoroughly after they've looked at everything certainly visiting with our consultant and this may be why you may see a theme of we give the answers back but that's why it may be necessary to come back for another meeting just to because there may be more discussion after we give an answer by me so it but we are taking good notes so that we can get something back out i appreciate it okay sir if i can in yes sorry i just wanted to add to to sarah's comment um i want the council know that we are collecting all the comments after the planning zoning commission we did receive additional email comments from the commissioners we're entering that into a database we will be doing the same in respect to the council comments and we hope to provide responses in that spreadsheet and ultimately share that with not only the planning zoning commission the city council but also to the public excellent outstanding thank you uh councilman raguara thank you so much um so i apologies in advance i have lots of questions and lots of things to say um so first i want to address head on the issue of a four out of seven majority of a prior council um through a big old wrench in the goals of our comprehensive plan a year and a half ago by approving the coal and hunter ranch developments um and staff has done a really good job of trying to cope with that um you know i i like the the new visual of having that shown with just a big brown block um that is and with with very little detail about what's going to happen in there i also appreciated the passage i think it was in section two or three about um you know building in mechanisms by which um we can work with the developers of that master plan community and other master plan communities to amend and update their plans to hopefully be more in line uh with with our goals as a community so i think that what we as a council and what staff needs to do is is sort of address that issue head on and say how are we going to mitigate um the negative impacts on our land use patterns that are going to come as a result of hunter coal ranch um are we going to try to isolate it and um not allow it to be become too sprawl e or are we going to lean into it and say okay this is part of our city now let's let's you know promote contiguous uh dense mixed use development um in and around that area and in between that area and uh the the central part of the city um and i i know i'm kind of putting you on the spot but is there anybody on staff who wants to speak to um if there have been conversations around kind of those two potential paths toward dealing with hunter coal ranch i'm happy to try and address that and my apologies i may have missed the second portion of your question i had to plug in my headset um due to a low battery but what i what i understand the question to be and correct me if i'm wrong councilmember mcguire is how do we mitigate our land use impacts a result of the hunter and coal ranch developments and whether or not we took that into consideration um with our discussions as as it relates to our goals and policies in the future land use map is that correct um yes and well and would you characterize my uh the kind of this the decision that we have to make as a valid way of thinking about it that we either need to say okay hunter coal ranch is happening um but we need to try to contain the the excessive low density development that's going to be happening um or are we just are we going to lean into it and say okay this is happening let's promote higher density mixed use development in between uh hunter coal ranch and the city proper okay great question so um as it relates to hunter and coal ranch being that the zoning exists today i think we need to lean into this and embrace the fact that these developments are going to happen because of the fact that they have the land use rights and we know that they are working on their development applications as we speak um to move forward with the developing those two communities um so knowing that they are in our future and that they will develop at some point in time we did take that into consideration as we work on the mobility plan as well as our future land use map we look to see what type of development is anticipated and planned for that area given the existing zoning and then how does that influence other surrounding properties within the area just like we would in any other place of the community where the zoning is in place and we have potential significant development happening so um if we know we have certain development pressures or types of development occurring that can influence the surrounding area then as part of our land use planning and analysis and even our our roadway planning and parks planning um we we take that into consideration so um we had as part of our conversations we know the existing zoning that's there the type of development that will occur and um and have been able to modify the future land use map accordingly in terms of you know do we allow for other higher density development um in certain areas them again we i know we've made some modifications to the future land use map as ed explained particularly in the southern area the community recognizing the type of development that's occurring but if we're interested in having certain nodes or centers develop as mixed use centers then i believe that's where that prioritization of areas in area plans that are developed as well as taking a look at our focus concept area map that ron had shared with us previously because it identifies areas that are targeted for higher densities development so we would be looking to that map that is proposing to remain unchanged in from the 2030 to the 2040 plan and as we work on subsequent zoning changes or any further um actions that we would consult that map as well so um hopefully i've addressed your question but if not please let me know absolutely no and i and i appreciate your perspective on that because i you know i asked that question because i really don't don't have an answer um and i i do find your your perspective on that compelling so i i yeah i'm not going to recommend any changes in regard to that um you know another um kind of challenging issue right now and this is more of a mobility issue probably but it is addressed in this the draft 2040 plan is the the issue of um uh integrating with and and coordinating with the dcta and transit because that of course that's in a lot of flux right now and that's a big big challenge um so we uh uh i noted that to councilman davis's point about um certain elements of of the the flume not reflecting development that's already on the ground um pardon me i i agree that um i would like to see um you know these the the swaths of green that we see in the etj um you know if we could you know add uh uh you know little bits of that cream color that low residential to reflect where there's already some development um just just so that we're not um so there's a stronger tie between what's really happening and what the flume reflects right um and another example of that in a very different kind of areas i'm looking at my own neighborhood i live near the the intersection of teasley and robinson um and it's a designated low residential which is um one to four units per acre um and i can tell you i live in that neighborhood and i'm we all have like seven eight thousand square foot lots um it's much denser than low residential already um it definitely you know if if the shading were to reflect what's already on the ground um it would be orange for moderate residential um was there um is that something that that y'all were already kind of cognizant of and you decided to go low residential anyway so um ron can you pull up a map yes and while he's doing that council member require so typically um when doing comprehensive planning and looking at land use development um the the future land use map can designate an area whether it is low residential moderate residential and in a sign or recommended density but as we look at an area you know we may find that on the average is how the how the parcels develop in some instances especially we have undeveloped land we may have looked a little finer a little closer but with appropriate land use designation would be compared to existing developed neighborhoods we did not go back through and do a parcel by parcel level of analysis to see whether or not the land use designation matches what is on the ground today um part of that is just because the the comprehensive plan does not provide for that fine grain level of analysis so but if um if there is other property within the area of your neighborhood that you feel um as combined with the existing developed condition should be shaded differently i'm happy to take a look at that but just know that we did not analyze each and every individual neighborhood to see whether or not the density that exists today matches up with the shading that's on the map okay thank you for that clarification and and i can see how that would have happened because the area to the north of ryan road is much less dense than the development that's on the south side of ryan road um i i'm also noting you know in regard to the the low residential versus moderate residential um designations that um there are large areas in the urban core of the town that are designated low residential um and i would like to gently push back on that um and suggest that you know for example um the area that's north of unt and south of university um perhaps all of it or perhaps some parts of it um could be moderate residential with the goal of upzoning and promoting more infill development in that area um is that or have there been conversations around upzoning and trying to more to to promote density in those currently low residential areas that are close to the core and tina if i can jump in quickly this is scott mcdonnell director of development services um absolutely love to touch on that thank you council member the the ultimately when we were speaking to area plans those would be some of the goals of our area plans going forward is to look at specific areas and what we'd like to um to do going forward so just keeping that in mind and then the second piece i'd like to address is both um with council member davis's comments on the muds some of those muds we have at least as a preliminary it isn't necessarily construction on the ground so i'd like to try to keep this as high level as we can that this is what the anticipated growth but we have existing development in the etj that might be a one acre track um and not knowing what it is that somebody might do with the mud we certainly can look at areas and area plans so whether it be on i-35 or the area that you were just speaking to council member just trying to keep it at a high level we're happy to focus on each of those areas individually okay thank you yeah and i i think that i i will be less concerned about the low residential versus moderate residential designations once we get into the conversations about small area plans um my next question is is more about um the just the patterns of development that we see on the ground um uh particularly in the fiscal impact analysis portion of the draft plan um there's a lot of talk about how um infill development and redevelopment is more fiscally beneficial for the city it's better for taxpayers it's better for the community um and yet we continue to see a lot of greenfield development which is costlier for taxpayers um can you speak to what pressures are causing that is greenfield development more profitable for developers than infill development i'm happy to address that so with with infill development and many times it's more challenging compared to greenfield development um because with infill development if you're fortunate to have an undeveloped tract of land then there's probably a reason why that property is still undeveloped especially if everything around it developed it's because it's the more challenging property to have development so developers will shy away from it and go for the easier land to develop the easier land for them develop is the development that is the the pastures right it's raw land there may be utilities that are near there that they can conveniently extend um if it's out within our etj then then you know they're not having to worry about the zoning aspect they're just having to worry about the platting aspect but historically um at least in my many years of experience in doing this it's that the greenfield pasture development it is the easier it's the path of least resistance typically for developers so that's where they focus their efforts with infill development it takes the right developer to come in and do the projects um it's typically your experienced developers who know how to do infill development projects they're willing to embrace the challenges associated with it i had the opportunity to meet a developer a couple years ago and he he was at a point in his career where the more the more challenging the project the better he liked it because of the fact of the opportunities that that could potentially evolve associated with it so so that's why that's why you see within fill development it's a little more difficult to occur the the other things that factor into play also with infill development is you have to have willing property owners either those property owners are willing to develop their property or they're willing to sell um you also have to have been the appropriate capital in place to be able to address the the financial um aspects associated with with the project you also have to have a market in place that's going to support that type of development that that is going to occur and then let's face it with infill development that brings out the the not in my backyard folks the nimby folks and so that introduces another challenge associated with it so if we truly are interested in having infill development then ideally we should identify where we want that to occur and embrace that and put the appropriate tools in place to be able to support the infill development to occur thank you and i'm so glad to hear that that last part about needing to put tools in place to facilitate the kind of development that we want to see which is is primarily infill development and redevelopment um my next question is another kind of um combination comp plan slash mobility plan question um i i keep ringing the spell of freight freight rail um we have you know the the kansas city southern rail line runs through an industrial part of our city it's underutilized i know it's being it was just sold to canadian pacific i think the kansas city southern um but are is there anything that we could do perhaps like a like a small area plan but maybe not a small area plan maybe like a um like a freight rail opportunities zone um that we could implement around that kansas city southern line especially as it runs through our industrial areas um to try and facilitate more use of freight rail as opposed to uh trucks is is that something that has ever been floated before are you aware of other cities that have zones that are are um you know either zoning or like area plans that are are geared toward promoting use of freight rail by industrial clients so i'll have to admit that's a great question off at the top of my head no i'm not familiar with um any other entities that may have established a freight rail zone and and ed and ron or becky pre-tam if you're on the call feel free to chime in on this um we could um definitely further look into this and see about bringing back an answer when we have the february 8th discussion with council but i see ed's turned on this camera so um ed i don't know if you're familiar with this kind of thing or not thank you tina mayor council um in fact i am um i in my previous life when i was a public planner and not a consultant i i actually drafted an overlay that was an industrial overlay that supported a freight rail area in the community that was looking to encourage the use of the rail line so it can be done it has been done and in fact um since then i think they're actually starting to see some results of that code that was put in place but certainly anything any area any neighborhood that has a special interest or a special purpose can be um further considered and refined through a small area plan process and you can get those specific standards in place and specific codes in place that encourage the type of development that you're anticipating or encouraging in that area great i'm really encouraged by that um and i hope that we can kind of return to a conversation about uh some type of overlay district that could could promote and facilitate freight rail use um sorry i have complicated notes oh yes councilmember reguara i guess if i could add to that then you know if there is certain areas within the community i know you mentioned that the casey southern that just recently sold but um if there are um properties that are designated on the future land use map given their designation that we are currently proposing if you feel that they're not appropriate for the area along that rail corridor i would ask for um your and council's direction as it relates to that and if we need to have a little bit further discussion on the eighth i'm happy to have that as well but would be looking for that kind of direction associated with that because and this might be a little more extreme example but for example if we have the area designated for a low or moderate residential but we're interested in that area actually predominantly being more industrial in nature and having development that could take advantage of freight rail then look forward to receiving that direction so we can modify the future land use map accordingly and any other policies or action items that we have related to that area okay thank you for that and i'm the the image that i have in my head would not require that um because i'm mostly looking at the area where the casey southern runs through the the light industrial and the industrial commerce area on the western side side of the city that's that's kind of the area that i was talking about maybe my colleagues would would feel differently about that but um i think that those land use designations are ideal for freight rail um uh oh in in regard to small area plans um i know that in this conversation the idea of a small area plan for northeast denton has been discussed um in the draft plan um uh university and downtown can build compatibility areas were discussed as being high priorities um i would like to uh express that i feel the more while those are very important a more urgent priority um is a small area plan for southeast denton and here's why um because there's such a description discrepancy between land prices in southeast denton and land prices in other parts of the city um we are right at the beginning of i think seeing a big influx of investors and developers buying up land in southeast denton because it's affordable and then who knows what they're going to do with it and southeast denton is a unique community with a unique history and unique needs and concerns um and there's a very fine line that needs to be walked between you know of course the community wants development and they want revitalization and you know how i feel about density but um there's a big danger here of um on the one hand pricing out the current residents or changing the quality of the neighborhood in ways that are harmful to the community there um it's unique community it's one of the oldest neighborhoods in town and it you know it doesn't have the same kind of like historic mansions that the historic oak district has um but it is historic in terms of the the way that that families have put down roots there i think we need to be very very mindful of how we are impacting that community by the kind of development that we allow there um so i would like to see that that placed at a high priority a small area plan for southeast denton and we appreciate your feedback on that and and welcome receiving additional council feedback as well um i know we are anticipating coming back coming back to council uh on their april 5th date is what we currently have it targeted for to have a discussion regarding prioritizing area plans if there is any further appetite amongst council to do that great thank you so much we're trying we're trying to get through the comprehensive plan adoption first and then allowing us to move on to that next step on focusing on those area plans okay great all right then i will stick a pin in that conversation about area plans um so we have a preferred growth concept which is still the same as it was from the previous plan um i would love to also see a preferred pattern of preservation um and it's sort of hinted at in you know the the swaths of green that are designated rural areas and agricultural areas but i would love to see maybe even a separate map that gets a little bit more granular about what it is about those pieces of land that makes us want to keep them rural is it that it's a watershed is it that it's an upland cross hip timbers habitat um you know i i'd love to see a map that that doesn't just say you know buildings here not buildings here but that's that's just gets at those those preservation concerns uh like natural habitat preservation concerns a little bit more directly um i don't know if that's a realistic ask for you to bring back at the next work session i know that's kind of a tight turnaround but um i i what are your thoughts on that um so i can tell you with respect to the future land use map and our policies we've been working closely with our parks department because we know that they've been working on their parks master plan update so if the interest is in the preferred pattern of preservation in terms of properties or areas that should be pursued for public open space for the purpose of public parks then i feel that and we can confirm with gary and his team but i believe the parks master plan would help provide us with that direction if there is something more that you're wanting then um that is outside of the scope of this comprehensive plan update and so we would have to that would add some additional time to our calendar and be able to produce that we can obviously look at what resources we currently have to see if there is anything that we might be able to integrate but i know um as a result of this just being an update to our comprehensive plan um we we did not provide for that okay okay um so i i guess i'll just leave it at i would like to see a preferred uh preservation plan a preferred pattern of preservation um but perhaps not as part of this process maybe it works better as part of a different plan um and then i i also wanted to uh address um councilman davis's uh comments um i i disagree with uh the idea of removing the shading in the etj um you know it's clear that our authority in that area is limited but i i think that we should set an intention i think it's good for us to set an intention to exercise what control we have um to try and prevent sprawl and try and try to keep our footprint compact um i do agree with him though that that map should reflect um the fact that there is already some development in the etj um and i just i was also confused about the the definition of rural density as being minimum five so just that's probably a typo but i was also confused by that all right uh i'm done holding the floor sorry so thank you for the feedback just a time stamp for staff as well uh we allocated one hour and 30 minutes and we're at that and we've had two speakers in a presentation so um just if we can from a staff perspective if you're going to come back with answers anyway if we can truncate that that feedback uh live unless it's something easy to answer maybe that gets us along faster but just wanted to make make everyone aware where we are uh councilmember mature yes um so first of all uh so i really appreciate uh the comments of uh councilmember davis and councilmember mcguire um and i like if i understood uh it correctly uh mayor the idea that kind of notes on all of these could kind of come back to us uh that would be really helpful of course we have minutes anyway but a more detailed version of minutes um uh would would be would be really helpful to all of us i think to staff too we'll do that we'll do that wonderful wonderful and the public of course who which is why we're here so excellent um so let's see so um i i concur uh with uh you know councilmember mcguire's point uh that uh we should and what i understood to be uh um scott mcdonald's point about you know keeping it aspirational where we've got uh future uh future growth in spite of the uh you know very real limitations that we have that i i really appreciate councilmember davis mentioning that muds issue um so those are you know very real issues uh and like councilmember mcguire and uh as i understand it um uh councilmember davis i support the idea of having existing development uh you know shaded for what it is uh so if there's low residential there you know put it there much like we've done with uh coal hunter ranch i would love to see that colored green you know i voted against it um and uh but but that is uh that is actually happening um and and so uh it is what it is uh let's see um i do uh i think that one way i'll just say briefly you know one way that um the aspirational um rural uh uh halo around the this of preservation around the city uh can be helpful is when it comes to legislative priorities just in uh reminding you know uh future councils and even ourselves that say there's um opportunities to revise uh legislation to reform legislation on muds to protect uh you know better protect our uh rural peripheries that we're committed in our future land use map to protecting um that just be a good kind of reminder that yes this is something that is important uh to the city will be very important to me to hear you know public comment on um you know among other things this the question of uh you know aspirational versus descriptive but again at the end of the day it's a future land use map so we want it to uh illustrate the fact that we cannot go back and undo uh any anything that's been done in the past but we can have an aspirational vision uh for what we want in the future even though there are very real uh you know boundaries and obstacles um first for some of those goals so um just uh so two points um uh first i want to say this about business innovation so i appreciate greatly the much better description uh of what business innovation is so we know what it is i still i have a problem with the word innovation uh in that description because what's being described here is just as it says at the city's employment centers right and and maybe this is not as big a problem as i'm anticipating but i know that when it's come up before us in the past when there was a much um uh vaguer uh description and understanding of what business innovation is i myself was very focused on the innovation element so if we're looking at so if somebody's proposing a bunch of office buildings you know i'm wanting to know what's innovation about that right um and here you know where i'm looking at this description this is telling me okay this is really envisioned as office buildings corporate office and employment parks and there's nothing wrong with that so but i i wonder uh if maybe taking the word innovation out of it and just calling it uh you know employment centers or business centers something like that it doesn't sound as sexy but i think that that could be an advantage because then someone can propose a bunch of office buildings and uh nobody's going to say well what's it what's so innovative about that um if if what we're really not after is innovation uh but you know just more office space in these designated areas so that would just be you know my suggestion uh and finally um the so in the uh and this is something that council member davis um talked about uh that uh little purple island uh is is that in the future land use map is that so that is where acme brick currently is is that correct yeah that's correct yeah so um i agree so even though you know acme brick is is already there right it is um as council member davis said is they're not making bricks anymore and we don't know what's going to happen we don't know what comes next uh and so i i would like uh to take that purple out of there uh it is um because i have not heard uh that the neighborhood really likes having acme brick there and wants that to be an industrial zone in any way i mean this is an opportunity to really listen to the neighborhood and to see um in terms of what you know uh council member guay was just talking to you and what council member bird uh has has talked about uh often as the representative of that district um you know concerns about gentrification and also concerns about uh the the cutting off uh of southeast denton by industrial developments like that you know and of course by the train tracks so oh and and sorry i did say one more thing but speaking of train tracks i will just add very quickly i really like uh council member guay's idea about the freight overlays and and completely agree that this would be for me i would be only interested in considering in areas that are already where we already want industrial uh development to occur and where there already is industrial development so you know there are places where the trains run where the train tracks train tracks run through like southeast denton where i think we you know we need to keep uh industrial development away from from that area so anyway i i really like that idea uh and so just yeah count me in as kind of being in support of that as well as long as it's clear that this is for areas you know that are already uh designated for industrial areas that happen to already intersect with train tracks that can be built up as kind of freight freight centers in a way that works with what's already there in the future land use map councilman beck thank you mr mayor uh so i'll on on my point since many of them have sort of been touched on i'll just reinforce where i can for the staff's benefit uh try and mostly focus on different points i am so um i do think uh in terms of the the timing of meetings i think you've already seen so many questions and such an extent that we're over our our pre-time that i i think i don't think we can really drop meetings so i disagree with that aspect but i love love love the mayor's idea of the the report i think you've seen a lot of support for that um i think that's a great idea mr mayor um the sort of summary report concept that you started with i think that's great um and and i think um one of the things i want to focus on i i think uh councillor davis briefly touched on it but i'm going to just vehemently concur the the action plan nature uh the deliverable the concepts uh sort of approach that that this plan takes i think it's excellent um but one of the things that i i think i see in reading through the documentation you provided is that we're aspirational but we don't say how we're going to get to those aspirations we don't say what our hooks are we don't say what in you know sort of we don't imply like how we are going to get to that action plan and i know that that's potentially part of the action plan but as we drop from 30 000 to 10 000 feet um we have to have a way to get there uh to really just screw up that metaphor really really badly um but uh the the idea is you know if we if we are focused on actions then then what actions in our action plan do we need to have in our cop plan to say you know we will we will assess this with these kinds of mechanisms that those assessments lead to an action plan right and so i think we need to provide the hook so if we believe in mixed use if we believe in in rural fringe if we believe in infill if these are some of our concept uh that are in our goals you know lu5 lu6 that kind of thing then what are the hooks in that allows us to get to the action plan so i saw that as lacking and i think one of the ways you see that is lacking is is that the the various conversations where you the councillors have said well what is the alignment of what's on the ground versus what our plan is or what is the what is the alignment of this rural character in this part of dentin versus this rural character in this part of dentin or this infill in this part of dentin and so i i think what we're seeing is the 30 000 view is too coarse grained for us to do the right kind of planning and so you you've seen the word i think almost everyone has said it in some fashion or other or implied it is we need an overlay kind of concept so do we need a mobility overlay do we need uh you know do we need what it what is rural fringe uh up against clear creek and i and i know that we're you know this is in this idea of dropping from the 30 000 view to the 10 000 foot view in the future and but i think we need this concept at the 30 000 foot view where you're like okay we want mobility in these regions so this is this is mpc with a mobility overlay this is rural with a general conservation overlay this is you know uh residential with an overlay of historical preservation to go back to the the preferred plan of preservation and so i'm not and i i think where this comes in and councillor mcguire addressed this um in and i'm going to push back uh unfortunately tina that i think you you have to do this this idea of what what are your goals and desires at 30 000 foot because if you've got a parcel that in the field up against the road would be great for a certain kind of development but the back end by by the watershed would be terrible for that sort of development but there is a there's a a way forward there's a path forward to have that and i know normally that's at the planning but but we want to be able to say look we really don't want you as a city as as citizens and us as the representative to fill up all the watersheds even though we've called it business innovation all right you know like the watersheds in business innovation are still watersheds and the watersheds in residential are still watersheds and so i think you have to have the characteristics of watersheds you have to have the characteristics of um of historical preservation you have to have to care these are these are overlay characteristics that are at the 30 000 foot view that will inform how you put your flume together so you know for instance i love that you've got the new designation agricultural but then we have this idea of the vacant infill and we don't really define it and we had some emails back and forth about what does it really mean and and i think we can we can define what it means the the sort of response that i saw was that vacant infill was more how do we put another building on it but i think you're sensing that like well what if the use the best and brightest and and best use of a of a chunk of a parcel is not to put a building on that section all right but to put a building in a different section and i'm not going to get into takings and and and you know that kind of thing right now this is planning all right we're not worried about individual parcel by parcel things but if you're trying to plan i don't think that um we're getting at the we we need we do need the coarse grain but the course is too blocky i think you need this overlay concept of coarse grain features that we want to see coupled with the coarse grain development plan and then that will inform so you know you know counselor davis's uh comment about um you know what we envision for the uh the etj i think we can do this sort of multi-level thing where we say all right on you know this was this this is you know when i'll come back to the point of uh of what's the current conditions on the ground a second it was these kinds of uh development our future land use um but this is now you know um we would desire to have this kind of goal for that property and yes it may not be completely within our control but if you want if you want our trash and our police and whatever else is in our mud agreement then then we're going to influence you as a developer even in the county to do it our way or at least some compromise way that gets closer to what we envision so it's it's a vision board it's a vision statement i i think you have to you have to put the vision in there and we have more control over the vision in our territorial borders but i still think you need the vision outside whether or not we're going to do aggressive annexation or not so i think i'm sort of splitting with councillor davis's recommendation there i think that it's great his his recommendation to follow the concept plan and get that map really tight is fabulous i do still think you need the visioning and i do think that it gets to the also this point of the pre-planning that that staff was recommending you know this is this is this we're trying to pre-plan mobility um in aligning with our growth patterns but then as we saw in some of the questioning to staff when does it become a fait accompli when do we put when when are we putting in mobility that it forces us to do a growth in a particular way that should be part of the concept plan and this is where the concept plan and the mobility plan need to be developed together and and you could see that if you have sort of this this idea of these these sort of overlay concepts and and one of the things i'm really going to strongly support and so this is like i guess four now is this idea that we need to know what's on the ground now and you know something in my day job that i do all the time has come up with sort of average histogram of of the the very fine grain conditions spread out over a large average so that and the idea of you know kind of taking the current fine grain parcel by parcel designation and then averaging it out to get a a practical and on the ground you know let's not call it a flume let's call it a current land use map so you take the the meaning of the actual debt and and look at the clume if i can coin a phrase and compare that to the flume and say are we aligning with our goals is our is our flume out of alignment do we see like you know the economic development board recommending one thing but the citizens recommending another you know you know because and so do we see that the green corridors are one way but the you know the business development will not allow that because we're too coarse grained so i think this is where we do i mean it's unfortunate but i think you you you've got to have these different feature characteristics that are not parcel by parcel so you know um and i'm going to recommend that and i and i am going to recommend um uh you know oh more and more use of these info tools that you were discussing to get us back to aligning the current land use with the future land use concept and it tells us it identifies areas that are misaligned between the public and the business sector that are misaligned between the current land use and the future land use and if they're misaligned um then council can make a policy decision it's like we this is a place where we could apply some of these tools to get to realignment with the future land use map and and i guess um um the last sort of uh let's see oh yeah no i i saw that the low density thing i do agree i think that's a reversal and then um in terms of the definition and then i will say i you've heard a lot about people liking the block nature of the mpc designation and i'm i'm i'm gonna slightly reverse on that i i do like it in that you see where the mpcs are it's really important i think that's what i'm i'm i shouldn't put words in council's mouth but i think the sense that i get is that they're reacting to oh i see where the mpc is whereas i didn't see it before um but i think it's the same token to get back to that because an mpc is mixed use and you want to be able to evaluate how your tools are effective and whether you're preventing sprawl or whether you're um um achieving your future land use and your concept plans or not those because the uses inside the mpc vary uh you know even if we took hunter coal or hills of denton those uses vary closer to the one end than uh than the other and and i think if you're looking at what council maguire and council armator talked about in terms of how does it fit into the overall uh concept plan you have to see where the retail is you can't just put a big brown now we all know the retail is going to be along the freeway but at the same token it i i think you could so i guess what i'm saying is i would love to see a future land use map where it was uh aligned with the current land use map and perhaps with shading so you know yes olive is rural residential but this is olive in in up against uh an area of preservation this is this is olive with cross hatching for historical preservation this is olive up against the retail and i and i know that that's a little you know painful but the uh i'm trying to get to this idea that there there are different uses that the future land use map aren't really addressing and we need to be able to see those uses to to get back to all the way to the beginning how are we getting to our action plan are we providing the right hooks to keep us aligned and going forward so that between 2030 and 2040 we don't lose these these action plan items and say oh well we'll do it in 2050 um you know we do not need to be doing that over every 10 years you know losing them behind the fridge so i we need to make sure that we keep up with and have hooks and i think this kind of overlay concept would allow for that and at least let the public see that that was a lot i apologize staff all right um council uh mayor pertin melzer thank you i really appreciate uh you know all the members contributions and having their like support all that input i'll just make some kind of higher level remarks first of all if you don't get that development in denton is in tension with preservation then you just don't get done and and i would say two things that i've been asking for consistently from the very beginning of when we said that revising the 2040 plan would be a priority the i have said from the beginning i've been told it would be integrated would be that preferred pattern of preservation so it's wildlife corridors uh watersheds you know uh ultimately speaks to trail system uh and if we don't have that integrated into the view you know this is kind of our uh you know relationship expression to the development community that they you know we'll we want they developers want to bring things that will succeed they want to know what we value so concealing that doesn't help anybody so make that explicit so we see the interaction um uh secondly if it you know we say it's just an update it's not a rewrite but if you look at the 2030 flume next to 2040 flume i'd say 90 of the color areas have changed in shape size location so if i were to you know just get all my questions out it would be take each one what changed why is this the new recommendation and then allow opportunities for input and deliberation so i i absolutely think we need the extra sessions you know that have been set up so that we can you know take it to the level that council members as residents of debt and understand neighborhoods intersections what changed um yeah and lastly i'd say another the second thing that i kind of have said from the beginning we have heard it has not been helpful to council well there's a contradiction between the future land use map and the mobility plan now i know that's why a big part of why it took us six months longer to get to this point than we originally anticipated because we wanted to find all those contradictions and sort it out so you know i'm i'm really not in favor of the idea of just leaving the contradictions in and saying we'll get to we get to small area plans it's just i i would concur to council member davis said this is the opportunity to express you know the world community best we can understand it and sort those things out um that's it thank you all right councilman bird i feel like i've taken a college course we've talked about so many things um but i do want to stay focused on the core of the city i did run on a campaign that says strengthening the core and i think right now as we're speaking and talking about the the city in its entirety um this is my opportunity to talk about uh strengthening the core of the city uh as we know uh i am a very family oriented and um i am going to appreciate the opportunities to talk about the to talk about the area plans for the core of the city um i've heard so much but i had a couple of questions uh one is using the term urban and uh the term downtown does that equate uh the same thing are we saying urban areas is the same areas as downtown areas that's just a question don't answer right now and uh if i have any other questions at the end maybe someone can answer that and then someone use the term life cycle of the family uh i do have significant concerns about the um the direction that the city is going in terms of rental uh versus actual home ownership uh i am not i'm very intelligent to know that someone could purchase a home and rent it out but uh is there going to be an opportunity for us to have uh some legitimate real life uh home ownership opportunities for people that are just simply middle class economic driven individuals i'm concerned about that 48 percent rental 52 percent home ownership in a growing town like ours how does that work uh so that's something that needs to to to be discussed on there's some diverse housing options as i understood there uh the other thing is um the character of didn't again family oriented and using that small area plan uh to do something in uh the downtown area i'm looking forward to the east side of downtown and development of something that caters to families uh we do have on the west side of my district uh and going in towards closer to the square where everything is adult you know oriented with bars and drinking and all that other stuff but i just don't think that we've spent enough time looking at uh places where we can send our nice young healthy families to go and enjoy themselves outside for real uh and then uh gateways and corridors uh coming into uh into the city from the south i-35 i just think that we can do a better job in welcoming folks into the city uh in in you know doing something significant uh with that corridor area in that gateway area in here coming into uh here i'm just thinking about dallas drive it's just kind of tacky over there as far as i'm concerned and i'm noticing an increased amount of trash that is located over in that area big concern of mine uh and then uh the infield uh you did a great job in explaining what infield was because that was going to be my question i know that still in this district there's some infilling going on we haven't talked about the um the food desert that's going on in the core of the uh of the city there's still some areas particularly the southeast in the area uh we lost brookshares over there on i-35 and those you know those community people have said that that's where they would go and get their groceries right over there off i-35 and teesley so we've lost that and now they're having to find another way um to uh get their groceries so we have to address that as part of a small area plan also um the other thing is low residential that's the other question so that's my third question what is low residential for us that needs to know also uh southeast in residence uh i you know we're talking about the growth pattern and uh revitalization of southeast didn't know and things like that we just want to make sure that those residents in southeast didn't know that they are very powerful they have to use their voices uh to tell the developers what they're going to accept and what they're not going to accept over in their community and they have an opportunity to do that anytime something is built over in that area and i would certainly encourage uh all the members to come together southeast didn't neighborhood association come on back together and and you know be of one voice uh to make sure that these developers are making keeping your neighborhood the way that you like to to have it grow in that pattern so i'm going to stop right there i am going to uh reiterate that the strengthening of the core of the city is something that i just want to be proud of it's very diverse uh now that we have a landfill stick that in there uh but we also have some new growth coming up around on 288 that is important we have uh you know some housing and some some new developments that are coming in and and we have some infield that we have to do so i mean i'm going to be excited to be a part of all of that i'll leave my my statements there but the question is about urban and downtown and also what is low residential thank you mayor yes mayor if you don't mind i just want to make sure um and address one item that councilmember bird mentioned just so she can feel a little bit of comfort um as we work uh into our housing strategy plan uh the issue that you raised in regards to rentals and the number of rentals those are the things that we will look at not only in the housing strategy plan about where you put multi options for housing for families for individuals and that sort of thing but also tying in where you see tina's and ron's job when we look at developments in addition you talked about having a grocery store and things once we can get a economic development director on board that is why it's so key that when you have these positions economic development development services housing they have to work together so that we're looking at the city in a big picture way so we know where people have ways to walk to get to a place of where food is and those kinds of things so we don't create food insecurity and and food deserts thank you mr mayor can i just just one more thing i just want to add uh where i live right now there are there are four developments that are literally walkable uh from my home so i'm very excited about these neighborhoods coming up and i do understand that there's a neighborhood that is coming up there's a really really close to me where they're getting ready to put some high-end homes uh here amongst all of these other homes that are are you know median type homes so uh that's going to be interesting um it's very concerned that the city or whatever the development part of it all uh would consider allowing something like that i mean to put in homes over to allow homes in over in this area that upwards to five six hundred thousand dollars uh in in an area where you know you have homes that are valued probably at less than two hundred thousand dollars and they're in their backyards and you know three hundred and two and you know it is just such it was just surprising that something like that to come here uh you know particularly that's close to uh the municipal type areas so i generally see something like that uh as it is development in an outskirt type in a more um community you know in a in a newer community but to situate something like that right smack dab in the middle of median income uh folks um it's just really surprising so uh thank you all for your time appreciate it all right going back around because that's the only people requested to speak again we're at two hours councilmember davis thank you mayor just brief response on the the mpc conversation so in the prior land use map we had the mpcs there were two at the time uh they were the same big brown spots that you have on the map now and they were broken down a little bit more they had the same kind of shading on the edges um retail uh more dense housing low dense housing kind of contrary to a narrative that's out there hunter coal ranch on the future land use map was just like robson ranch around robson ranch and then it had some commercial along the highway those mpcs that entitlement was in place that's the same reason i think that staffs made the right choice with this brown the big brown boxes because the issue isn't so much what do we want these to be and how do we want them to develop with the mpcs their entitlements are completely different and are created in a different way than some you know a five acre rezoning here or one acre rezoning there their entitlements are tied up in these big uh big massive mpc agreements so i think it's okay to have a big brown block that says reference mpc agreement for how this land is going to develop just because the future land use map isn't going to actually tell you a lot about how those developers are entitled to develop in those areas you have to go back to those big controlling documents and again hunter coal had most of those entitlements in place the vote a couple years ago was more about the financing and changing some of those entitlements from what they were already able to do by right and how we negotiate those things i'll point out that if we had the opportunity to master plan the carter property the heartley field area we might end up with a better result than this kind of comp plan goes this way developer goes that way we somehow find our way in the middle if there was such a developer that was going to be able to deliver the product that we were looking for the first time around when they came forward with the product we obviously weren't looking for with the public financing mechanism they wanted a master plan community might have been exactly the way to get that done and to address those conflicts we're talking about in this area so i like the way staff has it now with the big brown box it's kind of a see the appendix that these other agreements all of the development of this big brown block box is going to come in a different form thank you councilmember guara thank you just a quick addendum to my my comments about the preferred pattern of preservation or preferred preservation plan obviously a detailed plan is is probably not a realistic goal to include in the comp plans since we've got you know deadlines that were coming up against but we did just complete staff did just complete a an environmentally sensitive area inventory so maybe a you know it wouldn't have quite the level of detail that i think mayor pro tem melter and i are hoping for but you know just kind of throwing that esa map in there so that it's it's at least on the radar of of that of of the you know long term planning you know maybe put it next to the flume and the preferred growth concept map so that the reader can sort of mentally overlay them that would at least address some of the concerns that we're talking about okay anyone else then i'll just close out and just obviously due to time i'll just list my thoughts and you can just circle back to me so with respect to the etj i think i'd like to i don't know if it's for this document but if i could get just get staff to speak to what they would educate staff i mean uh future councils and this council to how to weigh or how to guide that discussion tina you mentioned that uh you know you have people in etj that want to have input into what goes into the city and that that's proper but how how do you weight that what are the guidelines to that how do you give guidance to a to a new council member a future council member on what you would kind of give how to weigh that how to fold that into the discussion or how does that fold into the plan it's almost like just kind of a a um just i i see that as an input that people can make their own decisions but at least kind of helps them uh kind of work through that thought process then um future land use map that's flume right for those following along am i right just making sure we get the acronyms out there correct thank you and then um north of town uh so i-35 quarter we're kind of that area where hersbach wanted to go that sort of thing and where hersbach currently is is there a small area plan in the works currently for that or is that caught up in the discussion forthcoming there is no area plan currently in the works um and that could be a forthcoming discussion item okay got it then i'll get with you city manager on my thoughts there that's separate apart from this i just wanted to confirm that then i want to kind of go back and and my comments about the schedule were informed by the questions that staff received in advance the answers we received in advance so for those tracking along there are four questions i think maybe five but i think it's four email to staff early so if we only had four questions then that informs my discussion on how many future meetings are needed obviously not all the questions made it in advance maybe they didn't all materialize in advance but it wasn't like i'm trying to uh foreclose on conversation it's more i'm basing my discussion based on what was actually sending the staff in advance so obviously there's more than four questions today and that makes sense to me i will say this i don't know what the process is but but uh miss city manager i would almost um mandate that if we're on these future work sessions that we have questions in in advance we only have four hours set aside uh to kind of have these conversations we're two hours in plus uh today and so and then you mix in a presentation and and kind of going back over with all the answers it just i don't think we can get through it in the allocated time in that afternoon without questions in advance so that staff can prepare for those so we can move forward and have substance make decisions versus another round of uh brand new questions that sort of thing so that that would be my approach there um then um got it then on the northeast part of town uh tina i i i take your answer to council member davis davis's point council member davis touched on it a little bit in response i'll add to that to say that heartley field road conversation so let me ask does someone know and this may not be the right group does someone know the king's way development has a new do they have a new proposed plan in place to build by right they have the uh yes they have a plan that was approved that allows them to build under the existing zoning they have a pulmonary plot approved yes and so my can that that goes right to the heart of what you and council member davis were talking about because by memory on what was proposed before they have a required street that they have to put in that stubs out at heartley field road and so i think the primary conversation is not a um small area plan for that area i think the primary is the mobility plan we can't ask a developer to build a road that looks into heartley field's backyard and then say hey we're going to talk about what we're going to do next if we're going to make them build that road then it's going to go through and most more likely than not and so before we before the developer incurs that expense before we do all those things i think that's the conversation that informs how that northeast area there um that was you i forget the the the name of the ranch but that informs how that's developed and that deforms that that whole area if we if we're going to have the developer king's way build a brand new road and stop right at that heartley field neighborhood then we've either i mean we've made a decision that we're going to go through or we need to divert that road to a different way or something that's a that's the mixed messaging that i'd like to get some clarity on before we go forward so just i'm concerned about that on a number of levels but i think it's a street issue and mobility issue more than it is a small area plan because king's way is moving forward quickly and we're going to get into a point where we've asked a developer to spend a whole bunch of money for nothing and we've made a whole bunch of neighbors nervous for nothing or for right for reasons so we just need to we need to communicate clearly to all those interested then you know when you talk about and i have to talk about this when you're talking about southeast denton and protecting it i've been saying that as long as i can remember i said that before this council added commercial zoning to the area and so you know i don't know what to say about the comments today other than i've agreed for the last you know six years and yes they're in jeopardy and yes this council has contributed to that um then we have the train zone i just want to be heard on that my concern and and i think uh ed if you want to speak to what you've done before in the past or how you've managed it the only area that's relevant to that there's 300 acres on the west side of the train uh north of north of um university drive and there's a harris track and some other areas around loop 28 the problem with that is it's really clear to really close to ranches of states and so i think when you you put the council whatever council has to make that decision in real tough deep water when you say hey we're incentivizing people to build industrial uses here and we're going to be sensitive to the neighborhood when they come out and say hey we don't want this here so now you have you're incentivizing the industrial use and at the same time you're you may be putting yourself in contradiction or um against the existing neighborhood that says we don't want that industrial use so i don't think that's a good plan to have something where the council incentivize something that then potentially runs afoul of a neighborhood uh you know i just think that's that puts the council in a bad situation uh just my thoughts and then if coming back for future discussions i think this is critical because i've heard infield a lot but i want a list of the infield properties that that council has um turned down right you have the one uh there there's several from memory but i just kind of want to just have a list so that we can begin to formulate um our policies and make sure it lines up with uh what we're saying we want done what then is in this plan right if we're saying we want to promote infield but then we're voting no to infield developments why is that let's drill down into those details and see if we can we can learn something from those experiences uh so whatever the number it could be just the past year or so whatever infield developments failed at whatever level um just i'll take your guidance that would just help me make decisions going forward um and then i would just ask that staff continue to remember this is a 10-year document and it's important that you take a position that it's not tailor-made to this group because we have an election every year this group changes ideas change plans change and so it's got to be middle of the road enough to live because each future council can ignore it and then you have kind of this document and all this work for not it has to be kind of with insight from this group for sure but it has to be broad enough and and holistic enough uh shout out to becky devaney that it uh that it it it covers uh um all future kind of looks at things so that's just my my three cents worth and then lastly uh areas around um the transit so ron my my thought is so i know i think it's caught up in a downtown area i couldn't exhume out the map enough but if you can give me your thoughts right around the downtown transit area we have those 14 acres that that have been purchased and and so even if i ignore the the large the ones half of that that's the trinity kind of buildings per se i really would like to see maybe an innovative innovation zone or something right behind the transit station kind of back towards those old corporate offices in the austin baker thing i think that whole sliver that connects with that downtown transit should be something else or a little more but i'm not the expert right so i'll take your guidance i just kind of whatever you think but just that's a question i have can you inform me on why why how that area is categorized and why and i'm not asking you to change it i'm just asking you to explain it to me yes uh mayor the zoning on the property i believe is a mixed use um neighborhood um kind of lending itself to a transit oriented development right there by the transit center so you know you've got um you know residential commercial you know restaurants that sort of um type of uses um that would fit in within that area okay great great great okay well if i have follow-up questions i'll get with you that's everything i have and so it is uh 459 thank you very much we'll take a break to grab food eat at the desk here uh so it's let's call it yes 459 we'll be back at uh 5 20 to take up our our next item thank you and welcome back to this meeting of the ditton city council it is 5 25 and we are backed for our last couple of work session items and uh council member davis is making his way back so we're all good um but so the next item is id 212702 receive a report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the draft of the 2022 mobility plan for the city of dent thank you mayor and council my name is becky davini city engineering director of capital projects i'm going to share my screen all righty well thank you all for having myself and nathan george here tonight to talk about the draft 2022 mobility plan update and we're both very excited to talk about these next steps and give you a high-level overview as tina and ron and scott mentioned there's been a lot of collaboration between the department of capital projects and engineering and then also the development services and planning department including the newly formed transportation planning room that pre-tim deshmuk is a part of so really excited for all the collaboration that our teams have worked on together and so there's a number of items that if questions arise that one of us will definitely do our best to answer but wanted to really put a shout out there for this collaboration of the groups that have all worked together also want to mention that at the very tail end of tina and ron and ed's presentation tina outlined really a schedule of events and really the kind of those succinct with timing of events and the mobility plan will follow the exact same events as ron mentioned the presentation was made to the planning and zoning commission on january 12 so with that i will get started and walk through as you all are aware the last time we had a mobility plan was it was adopted in 2015 so as i mentioned as you can see the new look we're really looking forward to this denton 2022 mobility plan just to talk a little bit about what has happened since the last time that we got together late september we've really worked forward with having that stakeholder engagement we had a lot of different comments that we addressed based on some of those community input themes and as we received those we worked to integrate those as applicable we like to mention that we really worked in concert with the denton 2040 comprehensive plan worked in concert with those land use assumptions and of course having nathan on board and working with those ada transition plans and the denton parks trails master plan has been a great additional effort to this overall mobility plan one thing that you'll see in the overall draft document are goals objectives and strategies i will go through and those nine goals here with you just shortly but wanted to mention with each goal there are several different objectives and multiple strategies that we're recommending in order to move forward in that direction with really that action plan overall the plan takes the opportunity to look at all modes of travel i will mention in the past i know there's been a lot of conversations and a lot of talks specifically when you talk mobility really about the thoroughfare plan i would tell you that it's been an extreme benefit to have nathan george on board and bring his expertise forward as we talk about those modes of travel and when i say that i mean all three modes of travel so that bicycle pedestrian and of course the the auto travel so really excited about talking through that with you also just a few next steps we'll talk about at the very end is really kind of what are the next steps to move forward the first goal that was established was really looking at that complete street strategy on all of the roadways and denton i know it's very important for all of us to look at it from a planning and then ultimately developing designing and implementing that comprehensive transportation system that like i mentioned would serve all modes of travel between the bicycle pedestrian and then of course the auto modes of transportation the second goal established was to effectively manage and improve the roadway system i think as you can see throughout the entire network of the mobility concerns that that have been raised or even comments that have come today we really want to make sure that we are providing and developing and maintaining a robust and efficient way for traffic to circulate throughout the community the third goal is to enhance that regional mobility and coordination i will i will also mention that you know we've worked specifically with the north central texas council of governments many of the roadway networks that you will see on the mobility plan are specifically related to the county's thoroughfare plan and also texas ultimate plan for their roadway network the city of denton is very very interesting from the standpoint that we have six text that roadways that actually go through the city of denton so really encouraging development really from that regional transportation network i'm looking at how we get folks from point a to point b and the fourth goal was to promote transportation demand management and transit efficiency and i would say really that comes from the perspective of looking at where are the demands that are specifically related to the different modes of transportation how do we manage those and how do we provide that available capacity that's needed whether it's on a roadway a bicycle network or also the pedestrian network moving on the fifth goal was to ensure coordination between the land use and circulation systems i know we've mentioned this i know there were conversations on the previous presentation truly looking at the land use assumptions and when i get to the map i'll specifically point to two different areas on the thoroughfare plan where you can look at some of the land use areas and really those circulations in those areas so helping with that coordination between the proposed land use assumptions and how do we get folks from point a to point b the sixth goal is to look at how to fund and evaluate the city's transportation network this obviously is our goal to help secure and explore different funding opportunities whether it be through the council of governments for through the county bond packages that could be proposed and then also really working on those roadway impact feed networks and how we can work towards providing and securing the evaluation of getting the funding needed to secure that network the seventh goal i know is a goal that many of the council members have been very interested in throughout a period of time i know it's a topic that's been discussed several times which is that overall vision zero plan for the city of denton i will mention that pre-sem nathan and myself tina have had several conversations about the vision zero plan and really look forward to not only making that a goal of the mobility plan i look forward to bringing back to you in the near future really that first step action plan but then looking at how we can implement that throughout the entire mobility as we continue to see growth throughout the entire network the eighth goal is to promote a friendly transportation system in denton i know you hear us many times talk about the five e's the education encouragement enforcement engineering and evaluation our goal is really to create that uh that center of a bicycle and pedestrian friendly environment throughout all of the city of denton and of course the ninth goal is to create a safer place to walk and ride a bicycle i know this is something that happens many times and many questions that we receive is how do we create that safe environment and really our goal is to provide that design standard continue to enforce those traffic laws look at the maintenance practices that need to be established and provide that safety awareness through campaigns to encourage and incorporate the use of bicycles and pedestrian facilities throughout the city of denton the next item i want to focus in on is really the map of the overall mobility plan i know it's very busy and probably very hard to see there is a copy of it located in your overall plan but i really wanted to focus in on really the primary purpose for this overall mobility plan i will focus in specifically on the auto portion and then i'll turn it over to nason to talk about the pedestrian and bicycle portions of the mobility plan as you're all aware the primary purpose is to determine the alignment of future roadways also to determine the ride away needs as you're aware obviously a primary arterial versus a secondary arterial versus a collector all have different right away widths that are required and then also coordinate with those design standards it's very important that we look at the proper design standards from either the sidewalk bicycle lane width median you know open space areas as we look through those design standards i will mention that we took a lot of time this year with the adoption of the criteria manuals and then also updating our standard specifications and standard details to really put all of those three documents in alignment and give us that playbook for those specific design standards i want to take the time to focus in on two areas where you see the majority of the dashed lines and of course those are the areas where there's proposed roadways the first area i want to focus in on is the area that's really in the southwestern part of town that's where we made the most changes to the map those are specifically related to the hunter and coal developments we still are having conversations with them where there's some minor tweaks that will be made to some of those maps in those locations but really wanting to make sure that the roadway network in the southwestern portion of town aligns with that future loop 288 that you're all aware of that's going to connect from 35 on the northern side of town and come all the way around to 35 on the southern side of town and connect to 35w so specifically a lot of the roadway changes that have been made are really to put us in alignment with that hunter and coal ranch the other area i wanted to focus in on is the area that's on the northeastern side of town and i know this just came up during the overall the plan that was just presented with the comprehensive 2040 plan and i do know there are a couple of errors to the map so i do apologize that we have a few of the roadways labeled incorrectly i'm very thankful that it's a draft so we can make those modifications but what i really wanted to point out is i know there's been a lot of conversation and a feasibility stun study that has been put together by text dot to show that 380 corridor that you can see on the far right side of your map connecting to the loop 288 and then all the way around to 35 really the goal with this roadway network and the reason for the feasibility study is to preserve that corridor so that we can look at that overall freeway that will be developed there along with the frontage roads that are necessary so that we can look at the development that could happen in that area this is one of the areas we really worked with the development services team to look at those land use assumptions to make sure that those are in alignment and so text dot is definitely proposing this connectivity piece between 380 and the loop 288 the next roadway that i wanted to mention and i know there's been a lot of conversation about is this outer loop and so that's another roadway that text dot's currently proposing both the outer loop and 380 are roadways that go all the way to the east connecting through all of our neighbor neighboring cities and so those are both roadways that text dot is focusing in on if you recall during the hartley field conversation there was also a roadway though at that time was called the integrated corridor since then text dot is looking at through their feasibility study declassifying that road and actually moving that ranking down from a freeway to more of an arterial type of roadway like you see on the map showing it to be a primary arterial so that's something that text dot's evaluating and has made the recommendation based on that overall feasibility study you can also see some other areas where there's some roadway network improvement kind of on the eastern side of town near the lake lewisville connecting from 3 380 all the way down to 35 as you're all aware there's some roadways that are currently under construction with the 2181 2499 has been improved and then of course as you move up north through town you can see some of the roadway networks that have been modified with the future loop 288 west and then also some of the development that's happening on the northern side of town and i know a couple of these have also come through council with specific questions related to developments in that area on the north western side of town so just wanted to really kind of highlight like i mentioned that hunter cole area and then also that north eastern part of town i will tell you tina already really kind of hit on this you kind of see an open area right in this area this is where there's actually a creek that's in that area so we work to try to add and develop some of the roadway network not only to get you east west but also to get you from the north and the south connection pieces to fm 428 or over all the way to 35 so just wanted to highlight that also as i know there was a lot of question and conversation there and with that i am going to turn it over to nathan and let him begin to talk to you about the bicycle plan thanks becky my camera started here good evening i'm going to walk through the bike and ped components of the mobility plan i wanted to first reiterate a couple of points that becky mentioned early in the presentation just to reinforce some of the collaboration that we've had to go through or that you know is really important as we look at these modal specific bicycle pedestrian connectivity the first being the park trails master plan which was a real emphasis within this bicycle aspect of the plan that i'm going to walk through and then also work that we've done through the ada transition plan which is important as it relates to maintenance of our streets and as we develop capital projects so i'll touch on both of those as we go through each mode the first component is the bicycle component of the plan one of the key areas that that you know was a great opportunity as i joined the city to relook at how we accommodate bicyclists was that text dot recently adopted new policy in the bicycle accommodation area and they've they've focused on providing low stress or low com high comfort facilities and so i'll i have a couple slides in just a moment that we'll walk through to help explain what those terms mean but the those are really great opportunities to improve the quality of these bicycle facilities as we deliver them through our capital project so we have already incorporated some elements of that into the standard detail updates and criteria manuals that were adopted early this year and that's a that prioritizes improved connections in the bicycle area so you know less focused on shared lanes and more focused on these dedicated facilities a couple of highlights that i want to touch on our our focus is on providing a complete and connected network of these low stress facilities so that was one of the big areas to look at making sure that this is a network it's not just one-off facilities but they actually provide a complete and continuous opportunity to travel through the city so we we really focused a lot on what are those key corridors that radiate from downtown or that travel along our main corridors our main highways those thoroughfares that becky just discussed and making sure that each one of those as it would provide those key connections within the community that we identify those as our priority routes we also highlighted a lot of areas where we you see a lot of bubbles and dots on this diagram and those represent areas where we have coordination or collaboration with stakeholders or with tech to make sure that these facilities are you know would connect with our adjacent jurisdictions or where we have some more challenges that we can focus on eliminating barriers make sure that it's a comfortable and safe travel opportunity for folks to get through those those really challenging portions of the street network so we wanted to make sure to highlight those as well a couple of points i want to highlight here on the bicycle component specifically one of the focuses is that we want to make sure that as we identify this network we're also looking at the specific projects that we'd be delivering because that helps prepare us to pursue grants in the future you know a lot of talk about infrastructure right now and we have funding to look at where we're going to invest in making these facilities real out on the streets so you know really focusing on making sure that we identify good projects to put forward but then we still need to work through the process of developing a project working with stakeholders working with the community to make sure that we demonstrate that support so that's how we're sort of taking this plan that you're looking at and working towards implementation as we're trying to get the plan adopted so just wanted to highlight that as well dekhi if you could advance the slide i want to talk a little bit about the the elements of you know comfort or stress so the first here and these are just images that i've borrowed from from major jurisdictions the first is just to talk about comfort so obviously as you're in the street on the left hand side and you're sharing that street with buses or with large trucks vehicles that sort of thing there's not as much comfort in that sort of environment for the average rider our goal is to make it comfortable for the average rider not somebody who would feel comfortable in that environment so as you work towards the right the idea is that the more separation the more comfortable the facility will be so that's the idea with comfort and next slide just to give you an idea of what stress is like there are different varying levels we call them level of traffic stress and lts numbers correspond with that so just as the traffic stress increases fewer people will feel confident to drive to ride their bicycle so the idea here is that as we provide more comfortable facilities they will appeal to a broader range of audience so you know as opposed to folks who are out for recreational ride we can start to accommodate folks riding to the grocery store people out with their kids so the goal with this plan is to identify those low stress opportunities those comfortable facilities and then start working those into our capital program just wanted to highlight what that would look like and next slide so the second component i'm going to talk about is the pedestrian component and you've heard a little bit from me about this in the sidewalk work plan so i just want to start off right off the bat that you know we've got these two really great tools the first being this mobility plan that really identifies where we have sidewalks identifies where we have gaps in the network we have that parallel tool with the sidewalk work plan where it has a lot of that same information and in this area we're really using the sidewalk work plan as our tool to help identify projects to identify where the greatest needs are so we can work that into our capital program so it's really great that we have these two assets and the mobility plan sort of framing this overall vision that we will deliver complete streets here where we have sidewalks and sidewalk gaps working very closely with that ADA transition plan to make sure that the two are you know talking with each other and that we're delivering these safe and connected networks of sidewalk facilities that accommodate walking throughout the community i want to acknowledge one really big limitation in this pedestrian area typically we would focus or at least a significant focus of our walkability would be to look at transit but we do have limitations because DCTA is currently reviewing and making changes to how they deliver transit service fixed route transit bus stop specifically would be where we might prioritize to make investments we don't have a really clear vision of how DCTA will evolve with the changes that they have already made that they will be making throughout this year so that's one significant limitation in this area of our plan and we can solidify what our recommendations are in the future as we understand how they're going to change their service delivery model but that is a big challenge right now our efforts in this area are like i said very closely coordinated with our streets department so we have the ADA transition plan we have the sidewalk work plan so two major aspects of our work are currently being informed by the work that's already been done and we have a GIS tool and an asset management software that the the two of those combined help us to identify where we're working and where we need to prioritize our projects and monitor the work that we're doing over time so we have these really great tools to make sure that this work is is being conducted in a very thoughtful way and the final note that i'll make in this area is that feedback we received from planning a zoning commission related to trash bins being in sidewalks and blocking sidewalks so that is one point of feedback that we've taken as staff and we're going to be having discussions with waste services to make sure we can identify ways to mitigate that i'll turn it back over to Becky awesome thank you so much Nathan i appreciate it so really the next steps for our team after we address the comments as Nathan mentioned we did receive some comments from the planning and zoning commission we've had several comments that have been submitted through email and then as Ron mentioned we are also developing an overall comment log that we're using to make sure that we're addressing the comments and having the applicable location of where the comment is being addressed you can also go on to the city of Denton website and just type in mobility plan we have updated the website it has all of the draft it has an interactive map it also has each individual map of the thoroughfare bicycle and pedestrian plan along with Nathan and my contact information as folks have additional questions and we've shared that with several different folks that have specifically asked recently so that they can share that on their media sources so really next steps for us after we get wrapped up with the mobility plan is to talk about the roadway impact fee update as you all know it's really best practice to work on roadway impact fee collection after we use that final document and that final mobility plan that helps provide us as we've mentioned those roadway classifications and the locations and those do require an update with this adopted mobility plan so we really look forward to that we plan on bringing back a work session item specifically just high level on roadway impact fees at the March 1st meeting and with that Nathan and I will end our presentation and stand for any questions okay thank you very much appreciate that councilmember Davis thank you mayor some of the same comments I had before thank you big thank you to the interdisciplinary team and even the some new folks who joined the fun along the way and and brought a very good and valuable perspective to what we had going on I also appreciate that like the last big conversation we just had this is intended to be action focused that we're supposed to undertake comprehend you know discrete steps towards comprehensive goals and I really appreciate that one of the reasons I appreciate that is because there are some things that we can do that are relatively budget friendly early on in the planning stages and I would really like to see Denton I don't know how the rest of my colleagues feel but I would really like to see Denton lean further in to safety as a priority I would like to see goal number seven be goal number one I think absolutely the the purpose of design of a mobility plan is to move people around right but what's the point of doing that if if we are not doing so in a safe way so I I think I'm not trying to imply that anybody is not being safety oriented or that we don't consider these things when we design a new facility when we bring things online or when we look at our thoroughfare plan a lot of what y'all have talked about is already very safety oriented but I would like to take goal number seven move it straight up to the top and really lean into how we consider some of these roadway classifications I I think it's great if there's an engineering textbook out there and I'm going to be a little flip apologize if there's a textbook out there that says this roadway classification has these target speeds that is less important to me than the fact that speed is the number one contributor to roadway fatality and injury so if there are people if there's someone in the development community who's thinking man do I want to build in denton they've got the slowest streets I don't particularly care if we have the safest streets so I think we can meet all the goals that we want to move people around efficiently to have our complete streets but to do it in a very safe way so I'd like to see us we have for instance strategies 7.1 and 7.5 want 7.1 is focus on excuse me life safety and those kind of things and then 7.5 is to manage safe speeds I'd rather say that we create safe speeds that we set what those safe speeds are going to be and if they're lower than our neighbors well we kind of we kind of deal with that so much time to get from a to b lowering your speed five miles per hour is not going to make that big a difference so we all know what happens when you put a 45 on the sign well we know what people actually follow as opposed to you know put a 35 on the sign put a 25 on the sign the residential areas put a 20 on the sign so that's my first little bit of direction and I have more that kind of goes to the thoroughfare plan but first do you all have any response to that or thoughts on that am I am I upsetting the apple cart by saying that I'd like to see safety as our number one priority Councilmember Davis I don't believe that you're upsetting the apple cart sir I do understand the safety component I know that visit zero has been something that's been talked about for a number of years I know our team is very interested to receive the data as we're working through beginning the data collection and getting that data in for the citywide speed study I will tell you that we also are meeting monthly with the police department transportation planning with pre-tim Tina also our team and really looking at what are some things that we can do to help each other work together from a speeding aspect you know we get a lot of requests that come through so I will tell you we're really working on some standard operating procedures that not only take the transportation and traffic engineering into play but then also take in practical aspects along with the data that's collected to try to make the best decisions thank you I appreciate that I know I know that you'll work really hard on those things I know that we send you plenty of speed study requests that is the number one thing we hear about is there are people speeding down the street where they need to be paying better attention and being more careful for their neighbors so I appreciate that turning to the thoroughfare plan y'all overheard the conversation earlier about northeast denton and I know some of those primaries that we're talking about are potentially tech stop facilities and things that they're looking at I just want to put another pin in this conversation that I think the future land use map gets it closer to what we're looking for in that area than the current mobility plan does understanding that that mobility plan as y'all drafted it reflects some some text dot some text dot stuff I mean when I look at a map and we intend for it to be according to our future land use map rural and agricultural like one section up there by the lake is just completely is slated to be agricultural and then we've got a primary arterial that's got this kind of wonky alignment that that follows existing really farm roads and and off very kind of convoluted surface streets and I start to think about the budget impact of building a street like that along that alignment and it just gets really kind of ridiculous after a while um you look at cooper creek and we have we've kind of gone back and forth there have been times where we've called it on the mobility plan a secondary arterial and then now we show it on the draft as a primary arterial and I ask again just primary arterial to what and then you've got colons on the far east side of that patch that we're talking about that's the road that leads to the clear creek natural heritage area and we have that slated to be a secondary arterial but again that alignment is not really suited for those kind of speeds it's it's got hairpin turns it's a it's a country road so if we were to undertake making that into a secondary arterial we'd have some real budget concerns we'd have to look at a different alignment and potentially some eminent domain and spend some real money to run that through some farmland over some creek bridges all those kind of things so I'd rather see us kind of cut bait on that idea and keep it closer to what it is now maybe a collector then the other the last piece of input I have on the thoroughfare plan is on thunderbird that was maybe not quite as well known as the area in the east that we've talked a lot about it's your first right hand turn north of razor ranch off the frontage road and that's a residential area we have homes that driveways go straight out to thunderbird and there's a portion of it that has been designated collector for some time on the draft plan we have that continuing kind of a zigzag all the way up to Windsor I'm not sure if Windsor is already going to be secondary arterial and at some point it text out is going to take Windsor over 35 I don't know if we don't just double down on Windsor and discourage that kind of traffic into the neighborhood along thunderbird I get speed complaints all the time there it's a straight shot and you've just come off a frontage road so you don't really know how fast you're supposed to go there lots of kids in that neighborhood so I'd really kind of like to see that downgraded from collector if that's at all feasible if we're if we're stuck with it I'd really not I wouldn't rather I really wouldn't like to see the collector continue further on to where that's kind of considered your main path from the frontage road up to Windsor through a neighborhood I think that's all I've got okay Councilmember McGuire thank you so much you won't hear me say this very often but I completely agree with everything that Councilmember Davis just said I would love to I mean obviously I know that staff is is highly concerned about safety and and you know that that is reflected in the fact that it's one of our goals but I would love to see that the fact that it's the number one priority reflected in the plan as well all my questions are are very like high level kind of transportation philosophy type questions so I keep thinking about you know the the the framework of the comp plan that talked about you know how the the urban core of the city is laid out in a grid pattern and then the parts of the city that were built after like about 1960 start to get into this more meandering suburban kind of style where you have this hierarchy of primary arterial secondary arterial collector and residential street as opposed to just just a grid I'd love to hear what staff's thoughts are on how to move forward from this situation where we had a grid and then it expanded into meandering suburban streets and we have some opportunity particularly in these master planned communities to maybe return to more of a grid style of laying out streets is this something that that engineering has discussed and and what are your thoughts on that yeah I would just say that Councilmember McGuire you know as different developments come through we're obviously looking at our design standards and our criteria manual specifically related to those types of roadways and the roadway network that are provided within developments to say that it's been a focus that we've looked at from a grid network perspective I would say that has not been the case this as an update to the network that is already provided previously in the 2015 with some modifications based on the updated land use assumptions and the growth that we're seeing in certain areas that I highlighted i.e. the north eastern portion of town and the southwestern portion of town but I am happy for us to look into that and see if there are specific things that we can coordinate and evaluate with the transportation planning team along with our team okay thank you and you know I recognize that it's probably not realistic to imagine that we can like turn back or undo the last you know 60 years of road design that's happened with you know cul-de-sacs and roads that kind of don't lead anywhere but you know maybe there's some combination approach that we could take moving forward that you know isn't necessarily trying to replicate the grid layout of streets that were built a hundred years ago but has some of the same effects and I that brings me to my second point about our primary arterials you know your your data is showing that a very large proportion of crashes are happening on primary arterials crashes that involve pedestrians or cyclists on primary arterials are much more likely to result in serious injury or death and you know and that's a result of the speeds but it's also a result of you know when we've got these six lane strode that's it's taking up an enormous amount of land it's very difficult for people to get across it even if it is an a signalized intersection so you know I don't have like specific recommendations but I would I would recommend and ask that you know as staff is planning whether something needs to be a primary arterial versus a secondary arterial versus a collector that we be mindful of how damaging those primary arterials are to pedestrian mobility and to good land use there are obviously some situations and some places where they're unavoidable a lot of our primary arterials are text dot roads so that you know that is partially out of our hands but you know as as we're looking at building primary you know brand new primary arterials out in you know what will be coal hunter ranch or other new developments I would ask that we consider you know could could we instead of having one big primary arterial have multiple parallel secondary arterials or collectors that would diffuse that traffic a little bit more what are your thoughts on that I definitely think it's something that can be evaluated you know really ultimately the primary arterial versus a secondary versus a collector and really more specifically between a primary and a secondary arterial these are recommendations based on the current land use assumptions with anything that is going to come forward from a development standpoint obviously there's going to have to be traffic impact analysis studies that are completed in order to support the overall capacity needs but I will tell you specifically when you're talking about the hunter and coal some of the things that you're mentioning or things that they're already bringing forward to us is instead of having a primary arterial here could we have two you know secondary arterials or could we have two collectors and a secondary arterial and you know are there different things that can be done instead of having that specific primary arterial like you mentioned that you know that six lane roadway I'm going to turn it over to Nathan and let him talk a little bit about the bike ped connectivity point because I think one thing I want to make sure that we're continuing to focus in on is we tend to focus specifically on the thoroughfare plan and I know that's you know obviously the roadway the general network that's given but but the overall approach that we've tried to take with this update to the mobility plan is really looking at all modes of transportation so I'm going to let Nathan hit on a little bit of you know kind of from his perspective the primary arterial versus secondary arterial yeah um councilmember McGuire thanks for the question it's you know certainly a lot of the challenges that I see from a bike ped connectivity perspective do exist or you know are prevalent along our arterial road network these six lane wide roadways and in some cases four lanes I would say generally speaking the problem tends to exist along tex dot roadways with maybe one exception carroll so you know there are a lot of these streets that are are really challenging that's I would say the greatest promise that we have right now as a tex dot has adopted new standards to accommodate bicyclists as a result of that and they're also you know making sure they address their ada needs as they do road projects moving forward that doesn't address projects that are currently in construction it doesn't address projects that they had designed and they're ready to let you know so it doesn't have that you know design expectation baked into their projects so a road like teasley is a road that I can point to very specifically or country club and different roads that they have these designs or have already implemented but are going to be a real challenge for us to go back and retrofit after the fact the roads that they're improving in the future so they're looking at loop 288 and improving that to include bike pet accommodations they're including those those facilities that we'll need so there are a lot of those challenges I want to go back and touch on a point that council member davis talked about with the speed issue because you know we generally accept in the engineering and planning industry that a safe speed is around 20 miles an hour you get much above 20 miles an hour and a person who 's hit outside of a vehicle is not going to survive most likely so as those speeds increase there's a certain point where speed management no longer is an option and now we're talking about the need to improve access to provide more opportunities to safely cross the street and to stop vehicles to allow people to cross these major streets and that's going to be a bigger issue from my perspective as we look at these main streets it's not just about what's the design of the street we also have to look at how the streets are operated we work a lot with james andrews and traffic operations on these issues on almost a daily basis but it's really important to acknowledge it's not just the design of the street and how the facilities accommodate it's also the signals and the other infrastructure we put out there to create those opportunities to safely cross the street and where we have ongoing conversations about that with text out as well that's one of the areas that i see as a real need to to evolve their thinking a little bit to come around to our way of thinking we need to be more accommodating especially in in the core area of the city all right thank you yeah i'm that's that's encouraging news that i'm glad to hear that that um these issues and these concerns are kind of already on on your radar and councilmember maguire i wanted to turn it over to pre-tim for just a brief second as he's been taking a look at from a transportation planning perspective and is involved in the different development projects that come through so he can provide that perspective to you good evening council members can you hear me yes hi this is pretend nation will come with the transportation planning at this point and a little bit of perspective on this particular mobility plan and to answer some of the specific questions that have been raised primarily the mobility plan the main goal is to move initially originally was automobiles but yes we're looking at a holistic approach of moving people from one place to another and as part of the question that councilman maguire posed can we diffuse the traffic from one large arterial to multiple smaller roadway sections a collector or a secondary arterial uh the the goal is to get from point a to point b now if you diffuse a lot of traffic into several locations uh it does look into the capacity and the safety concerns along the smaller streets as opposed to keeping it so keeping it on the arterial so it's a it's a balance game that when you're moving traffic you either want the traffic to be attracted to a facility that is designed to handle that uh speed is a different aspect though we can control speed reduce speed make it safer on even larger arterials but do we want actually to have traffic to move to a neighborhood street if you may so those are the things that when we uh plan all of this we take into account and we'd rather have a lot of this large cut through traffic if you may people that are coming from the north side of this uh of the metroplex uh sherman or salina and they want to take the 35 to go to dallas those are people using 380 and cutting along loop 288 south uh or along mayhill do we want them to get into these neighborhoods and those are the questions that are tackled by our consultant and us as staff to find out how do we really balance this mobility plan and that's what we've taken into consideration but that was a great question i mean yes it's um we have looked at some of these aspects okay councillor bett thank you mr mayor uh i also am going to concur with uh councillor davis and uh councillor mcguire on on the vast majority it sounds like uh there's there's a common vision uh coming out at least so far and and uh i did have a question about uh the prioritization of the goals uh with the caveat that i too share that i would like that goal seven vision zero goal to be um more i you know if we're if we're not a flat priority then i would like that goal zero to be higher up the priority chain uh vision zero rather um and so let's let's start with that one is are our goals flat or is number one our number one goal and no sir they weren't intended to be in any particular order they were just intended to be all goals that were a part of the mobility plan so it's a it's a flat hierarchy i i still think though there's merit to um sort of the moving moving that safety component up the chain even even if it's it's a little bit uh theater it says we're thinking of this first and foremost even if the hierarchy is flat so i i i'm really gonna um push for the that sort of safety aspects i think for the reason that you've been hearing um and and so uh and i'm also going to double down on um you know i i know that pretem and nathan both just discussed this so i won't ask for a belaborization of it but i do think that there's opportunities for traffic control uh interact traffic control uh and speeds and and a little bit of design elements as we move forward um i think you you can see the the i think that the the wonderful not wonderful because it's awful but the the wonderful data source of the heat maps of auto crashes bike crashes and pedestrian crashes are are ridiculously useful and should inform us that you know i mean in some of it is we can expect the unt corridors and the downtown corridors are going to be amongst our most you know uh interactive dense places for automobiles bikes and and pedestrian but then we have that that mckinney uh 288 corridor i think that goes to tell you you know these are pain points literally unfortunately and so i i do think i really encourage you to focus on those those heat maps those are because i too would like to see safety well in advance of flow in terms of a priority and then i guess i had a question for nathan nathan kind of addressed this but anyone can address it um we're trying to do a lot of what we're doing with the comprehensive plan the mobility plan there's there's a lot of catch 22 chicken and egg which do we do first does one cause the other in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of fashion and so in incorporating that idea how difficult is it and how expensive is it to to not be able to plan for transit as we move into these planning phases both and i mean i probably should have asked this back in the comprehensive plan so i won't ask it here but for mobility how how difficult is it to us to decide where we're putting a bike lane where we're putting a sidewalk how we do this if if we don't know uh the the mass transit and is that costing us a lot of money so i'll let nathan go into greater detail but i would say in general um you know we have probably i would say particularly four hubs we know that there's going to be bicycle and pedestrian traffic um in the areas of the two colleges unt and tw also in the areas of the transit center that's located at med park and then also downtown so we do have some some hub areas some basic areas of where you know we're going to continue to evaluate and use the um the known information as we work to develop um you know the overall bicycle and pedestrian network but i'll let nathan go into greater detail um really to talk about kind of his vision with the overall transit with bicycle and pedestrian yeah so i would say um it's probably not severely impacting our ability to plan or the cost thereof to to you know execute a plan that we don't have certainty around what dcta is going to do with their transit service like becky said we've we've got two fixed points on their train system and those aren't moving anywhere so we can plan around how to improve connectivity to those locations with absolute certainty a major emphasis i would say of the connectivity that we're looking at from a bike ped perspective is our downtown the two universities like becky mentioned so you know we have a pretty good idea of where those improvements need to be made i think you know from a transit perspective the challenge is that we would typically want to make sidewalk investments that connect neighborhoods to those bus stops and if the bus stop might not be served in the future it uh it becomes incredibly challenging to to justify making those investments if then dcta may discontinue service so we're i would say focusing on our core or where we have that higher uh higher level of pedestrian potential or that ppi that we've developed as part of the sidewalk work plan there should be a good marriage between where we have density and where they're providing transit service that's not going anywhere so that's kind of where we're focusing our energy right now so i'd say we shouldn't see that becoming a cost prohibitive issue now if we were a decade into the future i might say something different but i'd say right now it's probably not going to be a real significant hurdle for us to cross uh it really just limits our ability to improve connectivity around those transit stations that we you know have uncertainty whether or not they may be discontinued in the near future okay thank you and and i guess this is a the next one is a similar question and um and that is um for the the entire time i've lived in denton the the plan has been to upgrade mingo um and improve the the bike path access approve improve the thoroughfare access you know we we have all these grandiose visions of have access to ray roberts and the corridor for for agrib and tourism business and you know continuing up the katie trails and whatnot and and that's definitely going to reflect reflect and impact our our planning and and and so i mean mingo is listed as a secondary arterial on our plan and and i guess my my question goes to this is kind of like again back the what we had during the um the comprehensive planning is uh we missed some goals we missed some plans and and some of this is we we don't always have perfect control um but how for some of these locations where we've had these on on the books for a while and i know this is not fair for nathan because he's he's brand new to the city but um it it feels like to what extent do we know where the we really want to develop a road but we don't seem to be developing the road kind of idea is and and how much is that limiting our ability because i kind of agree with councillor davis that maybe if mingo was a was a was draining northeast denton then we wouldn't have as much need for some of the other um we could downgrade some of the mapping out there but if we don't have that then then you can't just cram density into northeast denton without having a way to have flow uh and even and safe flow because we were prior to prioritizing safety so i guess my my short version of the question is realistically how painful is the lack of development of mingo and i'd ask that to becky but she seems to be frozen yeah becky dropped out off and she's running to see if she can get a fix for that that was just too tough of a question there we go sorry about that i can tell you that um you know we we have the mingo project in our cip i think you know what you're referring to of like can one road alleviate pressure to uh develop or improve another road there's certainly opportunities that pre-tam i think already sort of addressed kind of how that hierarchy of connectivity could be looked at as you develop new roads but mingo is in the cip it's something that i actually reviewed the plans i believe last week uh so that that is an active cip project that's moving forward i can't speak to how much you know developing that road would alleviate pressure to improve other roads it may be too challenging a question but it's definitely something i i encourage us to keep our focus on because uh it's it's low it should it should be low hanging fruit let's put it that way should be i realize there are many things in the way and then i guess um the the last question i sort of have is um i know that that as we as the 3d uh corridor um plan goes from concept plan into final development uh around the loop at 288 over uh sort of a elevated mingo area um i guess is the plan and there's also the the 428 controlled access plan um this is this is going to inform how we grow to the north and you know i know that's a little self-serving but i'm i'm the d2 representative there um it feels like um we're we're developing right up to the edges of 288 right up to the edges of mingo right up to the edges of 428 and and it i'm concerned that we'll be able to carry out tex dot's plans and the city plans as well and i know you're we're working with the the city on that but um to well i guess that's not really a question but i guess let's just call it a recommendation i i really don't see us having enough right away especially in that first mile or two on 428 and and right around that whole deer field area feels uh quite congested already in terms of right away and the potential so i i'm going to encourage us to keep keep our eye on that um both from the the kings road kind of flow that we talked about as well as uh the development you know already there so i'll just leave that as a recommendation and uh oh i do have i do have one question um the map that you used for uh the the planning and feedback for the all these different plans are we going to leave a version of that up um going forward for interactivity with the public or are we going to um just stop that interface the map is currently still linked on the city's webpage so if you go to the mobility plan portion of the website there are links on the right hand side of the page that include the pdfs from this plan a copy of this plan and then at the bottom there's a hyperlink to that online map which was updated with the mapping materials that we presented this evening and that is live but it doesn't have that feedback loop where folks can leave a comment they can just see the feedback that was received during the comment period but they will not be able to provide new comments do you do you think there's a barrier to having a version of that map for ongoing feedback or would that be problematic for some reason uh biggest problem would be that it's currently hosted by our consultant and after this plan is adopted we'll be incorporating those materials onto city you know onto the city services gis services so the biggest limitation there would just be that transition period from uh when they turn the materials over we'd need to put publish some sort of a feedback and i don't know that you know i'm not sure what that feedback would inform after this plan is adopted well then let me take maybe in a bike and pet but go ahead i'm sorry oh maybe just in the bike and pet areas that we could get some some feedback on you know desires or things like that but the the actual thoroughfare plan portion of it probably wouldn't generate a whole lot of conversation that's you know those plans take so long to develop i'm not sure what the public would be able to provide it put on there so so let me let me encourage you let me take a step back and and just gently encourage you in the same way that you did the uh the the capital improvement projects map that we might have an opportunity on on uh discuss dentin or elsewhere uh to to have a feedback map where um i mean i know you're doing the ppp ppi analysis of of you know various collisions and and and flow and traffic rates and all that so that's probably going to be the biggest informer but i still think there's an opportunity for the the public to provide you with uh ongoing direct feedback uh so that in 10 years well in in five years when you do the interim plan and then in 10 years you you've already built up uh an ongoing uh feedback loop thanks yeah i'd say pedestrian is in uh discuss dentin will have a bicycle component that goes into discuss dentin and we always have engaged in for those one-off requests so yeah we do have those resources thanks thank you okay councilor armature yes uh so uh first i just want to say um how happy i am uh to have you nathan here uh it is i love just uh um hearing what you have to say and it's just really exciting um and uh it's also it's hard to believe that you have not been in dentin for very long because you know it very well i know that's part of your job but but uh it's been very impressive too so anyway just very exciting it um and uh also on those same lines um you know i want to uh join the uh parade of you know seconding uh council member davis's idea about putting uh our vision zero up at number one even though it's it's not a hierarchical list uh number one has uh optics and also um we can decide you know even though this is how this is laid out right now we can decide uh to make it our number one because that is in fact what having a vision zero plan means because it is such a holistic plan that applies to every single one of those uh you know numbers uh two through what's the last what whatever the nine uh all of all of the numbers um it applies to all of them uh i also think that as far as marketing now of course the mobility plan it's not a marketing tool for the city um it is about uh mobility for the city however i think it looks very good for denton um to show people look we're you know we don't just have a vision zero component to our mobility plan but this is in effect a vision zero mobility plan i would love it if we could call it that you know uh because it really it is an approach to uh the whole plan and uh i think it would help to make denton a uh even more attractive place for uh people not just individuals to move but also businesses who want to have uh you know their employees and their families uh live here so and anyway i am very very strongly in favor of that um i will say uh about and i also agree with what um the comments of council members mcguire and beck uh and i too uh you know when i see primary arterial road i have a kind of mental flow chart where first i say okay is this a text dot road uh and uh then and typically the answer is yes unfortunately um but if no uh what can we do to make it safer if it already exists and same for you know secondary arterial road uh and of course that's true about all streets we want to look at how we make them safer but um i i know i don't i don't know as much about uh and that's a big understatement about uh uh mobility networks as pre-tem so not even a fraction of what he knows uh but i do you know when i think of a uh a road like 380 or the loop um i see those as uh you know not um uh different than uh than neighborhoods uh in in category only in kind of subcategory or kind in other words these are neighborhoods where people not only work but they also live and they they don't look uh like certain other kinds of neighborhoods you know but they are neighborhoods um so uh i think that it's uh you know if if we see those if we see if we acknowledge that neighborhoods exist along uh primary primary uh uh these uh uh primary roads um then i think that we can uh both emphasize making them safer in terms of as nathan was saying you know looking at what can we do including on text dot streets working with text dot uh for you know more opportunities to safely cross the street for extended light times uh to to allow for for people to cross um but also look at as councilmember maguire was saying uh having uh you know when when we look at in future uh a possible primary uh road to have a secondary to have two secondaries instead or some sort of alternative um because no matter what kind of road it is there is it is very likely they're going to be people living on there and if people aren't living on there if there's development there's going to be people working on there and whether people are living and working they're still there and at risk of uh you know uh being harmed uh by an unsafe driving situation so anyway um those are those are my comments and uh i'm pleased and excited and looking forward to the mobility plan as councilmember davis said getting more in line uh with the uh comprehensive plan and future land use map thanks okay and we are at the time we allotted one hour and and going so staff if you could adjust your answers accordingly any other questions no other questions great uh i think for me it's it's simply um did i didn't see any but want to just confirm becky did did y'all arrive in any suggested road diets no sir we did not arrive at any specific road diets but it's always a design consideration that we're looking into we do have a few projects that we're considering for road diets currently okay but there are not any in the thoroughfare plan okay and to connect with that uh i think you i think if i'm looking at the map right locus and elm are considered four lanes is that right is that how they're categorized yes there are two lanes northbound and two lanes southbound right so they're currently at stretches three right and then uh so i think there's some opportunity there to make those more walkable at least maybe increase the sidewalk uh but uh just for future conversations just give me your thoughts on that you know just an email or whatever documentation provide just kind of what your thoughts are on once text dot run turn those roads over and and it seems like that's going to be never uh good because even the work they did on on elm is falling apart right so then they got to go back and redo that so i'm just i'm losing hope and driving eagle makes me want to scream uh that stretch between their two roads that they have is just maddening uh so just whatever your thoughts are once we get those roads in the year 2050 what your thoughts on what we could do there uh then i do want to spin just pick up where we left off am i reading that your your proposed uh plan right that that northeast part of town where king's way was proposed you're saying push that that street that connection all the way to the east of the elementary school am i looking at that map right to um looks like it'd be to uh cooper creek road instead of connecting at hartley mayor i am gonna have to tell you that i'm gonna have to look look at that um i'm sorry my computer crashed and my good friend tina that i sit across from is currently letting me use not only her computer but also her headset yes so i'm greatly thankful that for that so um but i do believe that we do have connectivity piece in that king's way area going up towards that uh primary secondary arterial in the north eastern portion of town those are some of the modifications that were made but i will look to specifically address that question okay yeah just to follow up just maybe if we could get because i was just looking at the shape of the streets but if you can give me specifically that king's way thing that's important to me because uh we need to communicate that and plan for that uh then um at any opportunity if we could incorporate i i like the boulevard concepts you know with the green space in the middle uh just for what it's worth i don't know if if you have any feedback i'd take it if you suggest these type roads work best i know you did that with the bike lanes but from a road standpoint just you know no median green space in the median you know whatever your thoughts are there uh didn't save us on loop 288 didn't save our building so so i don't know there's always going to be one that breaks through but just just uh just a thought uh then got that um yeah no i was excited to hear about us testing the the street sweeper for bike lanes any any you know so because i think that goes to my other point uh nathan i'd love for us to start looking at when you talk about enhancing those bike lanes there's some sharos that we can then go back and for less money go put in protected bike lanes you know so i'd love to hear kind of your thoughts on if there's particular areas where you think the streets already been revamped or relayed then we could come in and make minor modifications and make it safer from a protected bike lane perspective you know and adding the component of of the street sweeper uh but i'll take your insight as that comes available and then um lastly just i i think there's some some development things that that we'll just have to keep an eye on i think home depot is proposed to go in uh next to sam's there potentially or something's going to develop there at some point so that's going to be traffic change i looked at the map on winter i think i'm okay with that i i'd love to hear from you on that traffic increases and then you get to north lakes and i was trying to understand does that maintain that 20 mile per hour through there or does that change a bit i was just trying to track with you uh and then um obviously with the um the looking forward denton high school will transition out the denton high school footprint will become the middle school and the elementary school so that changes those traffic patterns and so i looked at the streets thinks i think it's okay but if you could speak to kind of forward looking if that changes anything from your perspective on the different school zones and different routes for people uh then then i'd love to kind of hear your your thoughts on that because that's a that's a big change so anyway that's what i have just by way of requesting feedback so other than that thank you very much for the presentation the insight and uh it was very holistic very clear very concise thank you all right so thank you that completes that item look forward to that coming back that takes us to item e our last work session item and that's id 212388 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction on pending city council request and it's this one's for a work session to discuss accelerating the request for an automated notification dashboard on the planning and zoning commission matrix yes thank you mayor hi this is rachel balfort mendoza assistant city manager i will begin to share my screen get this one going all right mayor will you confirm that that's full screen for me please yes great thank you again this is rachel balfort mendoza and i will present for y'all this evening our city council pending requests for information just as a little bit of background our process here is that up to seven requests will be reviewed per meeting we do one per council member we do have one tonight and so i'll introduce that one and council member beck will have two minutes to describe and justify his request and the remaining elected officials will then have up to one minute to provide their feedback and indicate support for the use of staff time in response and we will of course respond to all those requests where a consensus of council is reached do have a little bit more information here for everyone about how priorities are set via these work session pending requests and we do try to categorize them in those three areas as far as they're being time sensitive and here we have council member beck's request i won't read it here for you but uh his request is up there regarding um a a 2020 pnz matrix development and i will let him review that for you we did put some extra information here and in your backup and council member beck thank you i appreciate that rachel um so as i said in the in the request during my time on pnz there was ongoing issues where commissioner smith and i were requesting that we have improvements to the notification system because people particularly in the etj but in other properties as well just simply didn't know the developments were occurring so what i'm asking for is that we upgrade and create a dash upgrade our existing sort of notification system and our data analysis system to create a dashboard that is uh opt-in and selectable such that if a particular gps location or particular address is uh searched you can get all the uh the ongoing development activities within a certain distance or other searchable criteria away from that selected location and this and then have you could set this up in an automated fashion such that say anything in the last week or reasonable time frame was uh sent as a notification uh to to the requester of course there would have to be you know accounts and and whatnot but in this way you could get forward-facing public-facing um feed forward mechanisms to get uh more feedback to uh the citizenry in the public of developments in denton particularly around their own households or areas of interest so i'm asking that we accelerate this concept out of the pnz matrix and actively pursue it as a dashboard on the city website and in response to the city's uh responses i think a lot of them uh boil down to um concerns about uh workload and i actually to the contrary think it reduces workload because instead of having citizens communicate with development staff it you're instead interacting with an automated search engine uh and that way you you can just have this search go you don't have to have this be the formal mechanism of notification and instead the this is just a search tool like we use any other map all right um councillor armature i think this is an excellent idea i strongly support it and i hope we can have a discussion on this all right high priority okay um so no i don't support it because i don't think it's right to tell us ask staff a question and then tell them they're wrong when they give you the answer i think we should trust the answer one two you can look up the projects on the website currently i do it all the time for when people ask me what's coming uh and then three it's not a priority we we said um we gave a list of priorities and we continue to beat up our own list and then tell staff that they're not getting our priorities done and so i think at some point we got to stop moving the the goal line and stick to what we dedicated as our priorities and and get some of those knocked out so i'm focused on council priorities that were clear and established and these ancillary things and and i just staff does this every day we don't and so i trust their opinion and i don't want to add extra work and i and i trust their opinion that you would give inaccurate information based on when they check in and then you have to update it and it does create more work councilmember davis i'd like to hear uh more from staff if this gains consensus to go forward about not necessarily implementation of this specific request but the best way to accomplish the goal and maybe that's looking at what other cities do maybe that's looking at how other cities do their active projects map or something like that it does become a little bit clunky especially if you're not somebody who is checking these projects all the time or somebody who knows their council member already and is comfortable reaching out to them on a regular basis to find out what's coming down the pipe it it is a little bit difficult to find the right place on the website to see what might be coming to your neighborhood i'm not especially motivated by the folks who are not in the neighborhood they just kind of want to know what's going on and so they'd like an easier way to do it i am motivated by folks who may not be maybe they're at 501 feet and they just don't know or they don't see the sign until it's almost too late to have input so i'm interested in some way of notifying the public in a way that is efficient with staff time so i put this at a low priority to let staff have time to kind of get that information together councillor maguire thank you i do support having a work session on this um i think that although it would require more staff time on the front end i think that in the long term it's going to save staff time and and that's that's a goal that that that is one of our council priorities is improving uh organizational efficiency um i will also place it at a low priority um just because it's it's not urgent it has this has been languishing for a long time it can maybe languish a little bit longer um so i would like to see it eventually but not right this second anyone else councillor mberg uh yes i do think that we need to uh have a work session on this and i would rate this as a moderate priority just simply because of that uh reason that we just kind of seems like we just keep kicking this thing down the road so if we could just push it up a bit maybe we can get beyond this conversation thank you paper to melter uh yeah i would agree uh that it's a moderate priority to just have the conversation i think if we have you know more than two minutes on it and they're clear with uh with council and council member beck on kind of what's envisioned because uh that i think could get to an understanding of what would actually be very efficient bring us into the 2020s uh you know be easily searchable and reduce uh impact on staff i think that that ultimately is the goal better serve the public reduce impact on staff i and as far as like who has an interest in knowing more more so than 200 feet and 500 feet i think people identify with neighborhoods you know i could envision something where you check off the neighborhoods and uh you know as long as things already live in the database with some kind of an identifier like that then you know boom you would uh you would get updates on that but you know makes perfect sense thank you okay uh that concludes that item thank you very much takes us to the consent agenda uh just a reminder that item c has been pulled uh for individual consideration item e has been pulled uh from all together so i'll take a motion uh councillor beck there we go i move approval of the consent agenda excluding items uh c and e okay councillor davis second got it uh i have a motion by councillor beck second by council member davis any discussion see none uh councillor beck i'll say you aye councillor davis aye councillor maguire aye councillor member uh armator yes mayor hutzpah says aye as well uh mayor pertin melzer aye councillor bird aye and that passes seven zero that takes us to item c let me get there that's uh id 22056 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton amending chapter 2 article 6 section 2277 pardon me article 11 section 2277e of the code of ordinances to remove remove preference qualifications for members of board of ethics and providing an effective date uh did did uh yeah okay rosa yes mr mayor so um there wasn't a presentation requested for this just some clarification so on november 16th when we were talking about a lot of different boarding commission inclusivity issues for the board of ethics um it was noted uh initially the initial request was to um reduce um from three attorneys to two attorneys and there were some other options provided at that time with the outcome being to remove all the preference qualifications which include um the attorneys and uh and or uh retired jurists on the board and so the ordinance is is written to remove all of those preference and qualifications okay councillor davis thank you mayor at this time i would move approval of the draft ordinance with the following change that in section 1 uh subsection e eligibility would read just as it does and the above whereas with the exception that the words the number three would change to the number one so that the operative sentence would read the board shall be comprised of at least one member who is also excuse me i'm i'll start my motion over again because as i started i realized it's a little bit more difficult i move a approval of the draft ordinance with the change that in section 1 subsection e would read just as it does in the whereas clause above except for the last sentence which would require membership of one member who is an attorney or retired jurist okay is there um is there a second i don't know are you looking to second councilor maguire yes yeah i would like to second the motion with the uh amendment uh that that the required number of jurors is one got it thank you so motion by council member davis second by council member maguire and uh further discussion uh anyone else may pretend answer yeah i'm going to be voting no i don't i don't hate it uh but uh i just uh would point out that the board already has legal counsel there um and i think they're the same requirements that would hold for any jury uh would hold for this group and of course council members whether you know this is uh struck or not council members retain the ability to nominate attorneys and retired jurists okay anyone else okay councilor davis yeah i just want to be super clear the the change that is in the draft ordinance is not just to change the number of attorneys from three to zero the draft ordinance removes the preference for certain types of professionals and those professionals were not in the ordinance because uh teachers are better at ethics our doctors are better at ethics our engineers are better at ethics it's a big long list of credentialed professionals who live under a code of ethics who report to a body that oversees their conduct that uh may have been through some of these processes before you know you've got folks like realtors who sit on state boards that judge the conduct of the that self-police their uh their professions and so the main thrust of my amendment here is to put that back in that we have a preference for people who know and understand uh ethical codes that are credentialed professionals who have been through these processes and for instance you've got right now on the board you've got rob rainer who's a realtor who has been on the realtor ethics commission for this this area for a number of years and knows those processes i would also push back on the idea that well they're going to have legal counsel the legal counsel can't run the process for them legal counsel is there for the chair or the chair of whichever three-member panel to turn to and say all right what do i do next if they have to in your example counselor melter of the jury is a jury of laypeople they don't run the trial they make the decision at the end but they are walked through the process and given a very uh a very discreet set of instructions at the conclusion of the process nobody calls upon that jury of laypeople to figure out the process on their own so yes we do have outside counsel that helps folks but i think there was some wisdom in including a preference for those kinds of professions not a requirement that there be one teacher and one doctor and one pastor and one mediator but including a preference for those credential professions and then also at least one attorney i think uh makes a lot of sense i think that serves as a a resource in the procedural aspects of the process and i say that not just as someone who's qualified in both law and ethics but also as someone who has chaired these ethics board meetings and has seen uh the i'll call them civilian or lay members of the board look to the credentialed professionals especially the attorneys for guidance in the process aspects not in making their decisions for them but the process aspects counselor beck thank you mr mayor um if i might is counselor davis is your concern um more of the the professional nature more the legal uh nature of the previous whereas both um and how do you address and i'm not i'm not i don't want to like do like a back and forth kind of thing but i'm trying to get to your motion and how do you address the idea that there are you know a a particularly laundry list of professionals might also be suited to some other professionals that are not on the laundry list and how do we avoid in the future adding well this professional that professional this professional how do we get the most generic to qualify for the characteristic that you're trying to achieve mayor may i respond yes follow me you know i'm i'm just as happy with a non-exhaustive list as i am with um you know we've already got the language those with licenses demonstrating high levels of education or master craftsmanship that's kind of an afterthought if there was a way to communicate people who hold credentials and are subject to an ethical code rules of discipline review by a board of their peers those kinds of things um i think the laundry list does its job in that it gives us the idea of what we're looking for it describes what i'm talking about it could just as easily be replaced with verbiage that says you know credential people people who hold a credential that's subject to ethical review by a state board or a board of their peers there's there's different ways to to slice it i just happen to think the language we already have rather than you know making a wholesale abandonment of that list let's address if the issue is attorneys let's address attorneys and leave the other qualification preference part of it to the side if we agree that that's a good qualification which i think it is Councilman Beck is there anything else may i yeah thank you so if if in that case um are you it sounds like you you would be more enamored of not enamored that that has weird connotations more interested in that sort of training and and professional nature of the previous sentence so um and i i guess um can can the the problem i'm running into with i mean far be for me as a as a former professor and you know someone interested in expertise um you know to downgrade this but i can't i'm hard pressed to think of professions that don't involve um criteria board of ethics review processes i mean a little bit you can you can suppose but it seems like the vast majority of of modern career paths follow that so i i'm trying to understand where where that falls and why most career paths uh don't fall into that um category um and and it mayor if you might indulge counselor if he's willing to respond yeah no and i just want to put in here though i don't know how much time i want to spend on this because we already ignore it anyway right so it this is not going to solve anything it's that we're not going to muscle anybody into picking anyone it it doesn't meet the current qualifications as is right so we can talk about this a whole bunch or we can just say hey i'm going to appoint who i'm going to appoint as the current board made up but we can i mean we can banner about as long as you want councilmember davis thank you mayor no i i think that there's a difference in saying that absolutely every profession should be governed by ethics probably most have some aspirational code of conduct the difference is when you're talking about the credentialed professions the licensed professions that's not all career paths there are a lot of career paths that for instance there's a there's multiple credentialing boards for paralegals there are multiple ways to become you know a manager of different levels of different types they may have even certifications in that kind of thing but a licensed professional has a different a different code of conduct than a person who simply holds a certification some of them are state boards some of them are voluntary boards some of them are regional boards but all of the things on this list in fact i'm looking at the list now and all of them happen to be state licensure typically governed by a board of their peers sometimes elected by the governor sometimes selected by the membership but always a a high level board that enforces rules of disciplinary conduct that for the sake of keeping their license those professionals have to abide by and are subject to discipline so that's different from someone who is you know a high ranking bank manager and may hold a certain degree or a certain certification in how to run a bank but they're not necessarily going to be subject to the the bank licensure i'm getting a little off in the weeds here looking for an example but um but that's my point is that a a credentialed license holder has a different standard and is familiar with living under those standards um that is analogous to what our board of ethics has to do is analogous to the job of looking at our city code of conduct or our city code of ethics and applying it to factual situations councilor beck is that no i i think i'll stop for now and listen to other councillors input thank you councillor armature uh yeah so you know i've been listening um and uh you know i feel uh like how uh uh mayor protem feels that um just as uh in a jury uh for any kind of uh trial jury trial uh there are no professional requirements um and it's true that as you said you know there is somebody to guide them uh through the process but we also have that in staff uh not only the uh you know whoever is the legal counsel for the board of ethics um but whoever uh in addition to them uh you know whoever is the staff the other staff person i believe if we still do it that way i know that uh madison the auditor used to be involved in some some capacity uh so um you know i there are no professional requirements um for us to be on city council and it we leave it up to the the public to decide uh whether it even matters to them uh you know what our our careers are that's up to them and they've appointed us and so each of us can apply i say us but i mean and future council members um apply you know apply their own standards and i think we're going to be okay uh i mean if you consider that you know one of our most in my opinion um effective and groundbreaking council members was a stay-at-home parent uh who as a stay-at-home parent had a lot of experience dealing with ethical issues and also in their involvement in the uh pta uh and in you know being an activist about uh to uh regulate uh fracking so you know that uh it's i i really think we should just leave it up to each council member simplify it and it certainly makes things simpler for staff because uh you know then it's not a matter of checking all these boxes and making sure you know okay do we have at least one lawyer now if if this were a um a split if it was looking like this was going to be a split vote uh then i would be okay with one lawyer i'm not i'm not against having one lawyer on even requiring one lawyer but i my preference would be not to require any particular professions uh so uh i i will also be voting uh no to this you know however if that doesn't succeed then i would be okay with it with just the one lawyer but nothing else councilor davis thank you mayor i'd just point out again that this is expressing a preference i think this offers guidance to council members in their nominations other than the the one attorney it doesn't restrict us it doesn't say we can't appoint a stay-at-home mom it doesn't mean at all that a stay-at-home mom cannot effectively navigate a process or make a good judgment call about ethics or an ethics violation but the preference i think should be stated so that if they're if they're someone who wants to serve in a city capacity and they're not one of these folks it may be that they're exactly the right person for the board of ethics it may be that they're exactly the right person for a different board that more fits their skill set i can think of a lot of people who aren't licensed license holders who would be good for the board of ethics but i think expressing the preference and letting the world know through our ethics ordinance because half of what the ethics ordinance does is communicate a message of ethics a message of trust and a message of of aspiration of how we expect people to conduct themselves if we do that by saying we have a a group of people we expect and hope for a group of people who know how to navigate these issues and that's who's on our board of ethics reviewing these factual scenarios as they come up i think that communicates the right thing again it doesn't stop us from appointing a board of under the way i phrased it one attorney and a bunch of folks that have no hold no license are subject to no ethical um have no uh you know credential like it's on the list but i think expressing the preference gives us the right direction for as we start to think about who our nominees might be anyone else council member i just think that the argument that um councilman um davis is making seems more reasonable to me it's it sounds like we should have someone on that board that has an inkling of uh an idea of you know how the process takes place so um that's what's in my mind the other thing that's in my mind is that sometimes when we have these uh positions on these boards you know just particularly a position that might be high level like a lawyer uh they tend to run in the same circles and we always seem to circle back to the same people uh so that's my concern is someone that's on there that begets their friends that beget their friends and is basically the same person you know if we think about it um digest that for me but uh davis i'm i'm in agreement with uh what you're saying i appreciate your thought on that thank you okay anyone else seeing none uh council member why did you remove your second um i i did after uh councilman davis clarified his point not being just about amending the number of attorneys yes i withdrew my second all right mayor hutzpah will second just to keep it going so we have a motion by council member davis second by mayor hutzpah uh any other discussion seeing none um council member davis how say you i count the mayor hutzpah is a i uh council member beck i'm close but no mayor portin melzer name councillor burke aye uh councillor armature no who am i missing me councillor maguire no okay motion fails um four three i'll take a motion councillor armature i move to uh approve the ordinance as is is there a second councillor beck i'll second motion by councillor armature second by councillor beck any discussion uh i'll just note uh the reason i voted the way i did and i'm not going to support this is uh date council member davis has the lived experience on the board and has been in the room uh and i didn't hear anyone one else that that spoke to that lived experience and so that to me is compelling um i think it's just you know i just think that's important so to truncate it uh okay so we have a motion by councillor armature second by councillor beck any other discussion seeing none uh councillor armature how say you yes councillor bett aye councillor maguire aye councillor davis nay um mayor hutsworth is a nay councillor uh mayor putson melzer aye and councillor bird aye and that passes five two that concludes our consent agenda takes us to our individual items for consideration first one is item a which is id 22059 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton amending chapter 2 article 3 section 261 of the code of ordinances to remove the required voter voter requirement for board and commission members and add the city of denton resident requirement for boarding commission members and providing an effective date thank you mr mayor my name is rosa rios and i'm your city secretary i'm going to go ahead and call up the presentation oh one one second i missed something here sorry uh rachel are you there i am sir so the caller we have is for this item and she's ready just whenever you like if you want to take her now or after the presentation and discussion completely up to you sir got it okay so we'll take it after presentation i'm sorry i just wanted to get that straight rosa go ahead no that's okay thank you point of order mayor did did we miss e on the consent agenda was that pulled or it was pulled all in all together oh right okay thank you yes thank you thank you all right so i'm here to present your item to provide a little bit of background at the november 16 2019 work session city council deliberated possible removal of the voter registration requirements for all members of its boards commissions and committees there was no consensus reached at that time with the exception that one member of the city council was in favor of reconsidering their position on not removing the qualification in the event a majority majority of the members were in favor of removing it with three members being in favor of removing the voter registration requirement while maintaining the the residency requirement this item provides for additional deliberation and possible option on removing the voter registration requirement while still mandating residency in the city as you can see here code of ordinances article 3 section 261 does reference that members of a board of commission in addition to other qualifications prescribed by federal or state law or even an ordinance shall be a qualified voter of the city and of course in order to be a qualified voter of the city you are required to reside within the city so your options today are to remove the voter registration for all boards commissions committees and require residency in the city in that case you would adopt the draft ordinance as presented if you desire to remove the voter registration voter registration requirement for only certain boards commissions or committees and still require residency in the city then amendment to the draft ordinance is presented would be needed you should note that regardless of what action you decide to take that any change would not be applicable to the public utility board as their voter registration requirements while this residency and other requirements the same as applied to members of the city council are set forth in the city charter so an ordinance is not able to amend the charter and uh we will take any questions thank you uh councillor maguire thank you um clarification i don't recall if this direction gained uh consensus support but i recall that i recommended uh including language like uh shall be a resident of the city aged 18 or older um do federal or state law already require that members of boards and commissions be 18 or older there is no age requirement statewide at least not for our boards and commissions that was mentioned um at the at the work session i referenced and um you were in favor of council member maguire as was council member our mentor and mayor pro tem melzer okay so that failed to gain majority support okay um okay okay um i i'd also uh uh this is related um and i apologize for not catching this earlier um i should have read more carefully um but consent agenda item d regarding the committee on persons with disabilities uses the word citizens um was that intentional point of order we okay my apologies yeah that's yeah i withdraw that that question um okay that's that's all i have for now council member yeah just to speak to that and then i'm eager to hear the caller will i'll save my comments for uh after they call her uh but my memory uh was that and council member beck can speak to that but i i could have sworn that council member beck was also in favor of the 18 uh requirement uh but of course council member beck knows and rosa has a better memory than i do so all right anyone else okay uh rachel if you could bring on the caller please sure once i let her in it would be mariela nunes james and is it is it three minutes or four four minutes thank you so is calling you there rachel she's not on can you hear me yes okay can i start yeah if you could give your name and address and then you'll have four minutes thank you thank you my name is mariela nunes james and i live live in 3449 lake country drive here in denton um and i'm calling on behalf of myself as a researcher of immigration uh denton resident and of course as part of a group called movimiento cosecha and we are a non-violent movement of denton residents who are committed to the respect dignity and permanent protection of the 11 million that are undocumented and also authorized immigrants and i'm calling tonight to really ask well first to thank you for actually considering removing the voter requirement and urge you to vote yes i think um the proposal really allows for the goal that the city of denton has to include more diverse viewpoints and the requirement as it stands right now prohibits 12.7 percent of the foreign-born population that calls denton our home um and this is uh of course an important population that should be included um i want to remind you all that of course as you know voter registration is dependent upon u.s citizenship um and there's lots of misconceptions and i could talk hours about why those are um but just to sum it all up um many of us desire to acquire u.s citizenship but what we often lack are our opportunities and there's this misconception or stereotype that somehow immigrants do not want to be u.s citizens and what the reality is is that there are no existing pathways for some to become u.s citizens and for others the pathway sometimes takes decades long and so despite all of this authorized and undocumented immigrants in the city of denton uh continue to contribute to to the city in many ways we work here our kids are here we own homes here we have businesses we are taxpayers and of course we contribute to the cultural and diversity value values of of the city um and just one recent example you know the ways in which contribute i was part of the complete town committee uh and i was an integral part of that committee um you know and and provided a perspective that was unique and necessary and thought by the city when it tried to reach those hard to reach populations uh like immigrants and in addition to that just lastly another example where the city could have benefited from a non-u.s citizen or a non-register vote voter was during the 2021 winter storm um denton was unable to directly communicate and effectively communicate with spanish speakers and speakers of other languages during during a time of crisis and that's 20 22.8 or almost 23 percent of the city's population who speaks that language other than than english and it's unfortunate that the city was not equipped to quickly respond and to provide life-saving information and many of us were called as volunteers or had to take it upon ourselves to really translate and communicate that uh information effectively so i just want to again um just thank you for putting this up up for vote and consideration uh and i hope that you vote yes thank you very much and that's it thank you so much uh okay um council member well okay councilor roberter uh yes i really appreciate uh uh the uh doctor nunas jane's comments um and i want to speak uh both from a personal point of view and a political point of view um i am a granddaughter of refugees on both sides of my family uh from the ukraine they fled anti-semitic violence and they came to this country seeking a better life this was at a time when it was much easier to become a u.s citizen uh there they had a hard life they for they and their families and building up from nothing but citizenship was offered to them in a way that it is not now um and i i shudder to think of how much more difficult things would have been for my grandparents uh had they had to spend decades uh working on their citizenship in addition to all the other struggles that they went through uh with with their families i want to read a little bit from um the email sent to all of council from lily and prado who uh also who writes in favor of this of removing the voter requirements for the same reasons lily and prado carillo is also a in lulac one of the board members she says for the majority of my life i was not considered a u.s citizen and therefore was not allowed to vote however i earned a bachelor's in education and started a master's degree in public administration from unt all while only having my residency status not being a u.s citizen has nothing to do with your ability to serve and lend experience in areas that you are suited for in fact having people from different backgrounds and perspectives only enhances the boards and commissions these people may serve on and she gives an example i will also say uh that uh that uh lillian is a a parent and anybody who is a parent who lives in denton who has kids in public schools who drives on our streets is affected by the decisions we make as council members and are often involved in their local ptas in their communities finally uh about our streets uh dr nunas james was listing all of some of the many ways in which immigrants contribute to the city of denton uh immigrants not only drive the streets which is and we we all know from having uh block walked and run for council uh the issue of denton streets is just something that comes up again and again uh so they experience this issue and we also have immigrants who have built our streets and who have built our buildings and who live in denton and are not being represented on boards and committees so we we have i believe something like 12 12.7 percent of the denton population is immigrant is my understanding many of whom as dr nunas jane said would want to and are working on becoming u.s citizens but that can take decades it can take decades and they are contributing to our society now but not being represented so i hope we can get a consensus to vote yes and show that we really are an inclusive city and we really are intent on making real democracy happen on our boards and committees councilman beck as the as the topic of the the person willing to reconsider i i will say uh um a brief version of what i sort of did the last time we had this discussion is i i think it's really clear that for our advisory boards and commissions we really do absolutely need uh and and are best served with a broad-based uh resident requirement and my only concern for the quasi-judicial and quasi-legal uh boards um was uh you know sort of the relationship with the the democratic power structure in our in in our city and country but as i as i look at the the harms and benefits and and cost benefit analysis it's it's clear that uh you know if if i have to fall on one side or the other on the small cadre of four or five boards that that have quasi-judicial status um and and keep them all together minus the pub as as rosa says which has uh state requirements uh then i'm going to fall down on um opening it up simply because uh i think the the greatest benefit to the dentin is in that request and i think you can satisfy the majority of my concerns by a residency requirement um i will recommend that uh and well i'll just do it this way um i'll make a motion to approve uh this this item as um presented that we remove the voter requirements um with the addition that uh the the board and commission member be 18 years old and older. Okay is there a second? Councilmember McGuire. Councilmember McGuire. Apologies i i second uh the motion with the amendment that uh to include language shall be a resident of the city aged 18 or older. All right discussion. Councilmember Davis. Thank you mayor uh we're we're getting closer to something that i can i can support here because i take the callers and the emails uh the email or email commenters points uh and councilmember Armenter's points very seriously that there uh we absolutely can't discount the contribution of the immigrant community community i think the statistic was 12.7 percent of the foreign-born population but that's still a large number of people that's still a lot of folks um who are either seeking citizenship or are uh lawful permanent residents um there's lots of different situations and then i also don't want to forget um folks that came to this country through no action of their own and grew up here and speak this language and grew up in this school system and this is their home just as much as it is yours or mine so i want to be very very careful how i speak about this issue because i don't want to imply at any point a lack of respect for that community or the folks that are a part of it however because we are appointing people to positions within the city government um using voter registration is not the only shorthand for figuring out whether someone is a lawful resident of the city removing the voter registration requirement is a good way to be able to include folks who are residents of the city but for one reason or another are not able to register to vote my preference would be that it would read shall be in addition to qualifications prescribed by federal state law or ordinance shall be a lawful resident of the city uh over the age of 18 or however legal chooses to phrase that last bit so at this point i would move to amend the motion to include the word lawful before the word resident in section one okay um he just is there a second rose i have a question if there's no second um is that explain to me resident how does the city see that is that is it assumed law for how does that or just resident just means how does that interpret it i guess i don't want to poison the pool well we look at residency meaning that they reside within the city and what we would do um we would capture the they have to attest kind of swear to uh electronically that the information that they contain within their application is correct um so if they say that you know this is their address and we will go by that address keep in mind too that we also have to look at obligations you know that members cannot have obligations of the city so what we do is we look at the address and the name um and check with you know are some of our departments just to see that they don't so that's kind of what the way that we would verify the residency okay uh councilman armature are you requesting to speak uh yes and if it's concise as possible i mean okay yes it's a question there are two questions actually question for uh uh councilmember davis and question for the city attorney um so councillor davis when you say a lawful resident um you mean excluding uh also uh permanent residents that is people who are who are green card holders who live here and can and can work here lawfully mayor may i respond yeah i'm sorry yes by all means that's okay my intention would be to include those folks people who are were lawful residents of the city um i'm trying to avoid putting stating it as the positive because i don't want to use some negative terms that are often very offensive but i think someone who is a lawful permanent resident a green card holder someone who is living in the city of denton lawfully um somebody that would also i think loop in somebody who gains status if there's changes at the federal level that add status or create status for folks who are here um my intention is to be as broad as possible while still requiring some sort of lawful status to be a part of the city government okay uh so and thank you for explaining that um so and i still have my question for the city attorney i'll uh you know comment on that that uh i uh don't don't support that uh i support the the motion is put forward uh by brian beck seconded by alison maguire just limiting it to resident uh people can prove their residency uh with just like the the way that people who are parents do and they enroll their kids in public schools uh you have an electric bill or whatever uh that verifies your address uh so uh there are means of verifying the address uh and i want to be as inclusive as we can and including uh all kinds of uh denton residents uh who can who can prove their address that they live in denton um who uh uh who want to serve uh on boards and committees so my question for the city attorney is just if you could uh speak to you know your understanding of what uh is included and excluded by that term lawful uh modifying resident yeah i mean i would go off of what council member davis had mentioned um and we'd have to look at effectively what's their immigration status is what it sounds like is intended by lawful um so we have to figure out and determine are they i'm sorry you you tailed off a bit we can't hear you sorry about that mayor and council so it sounds like what we're referring to is their immigration status and how we would go about verifying that we i don't know if the city has measures in place right now but that would be the only way i think we could verify lawful is to check whether they have whether they're licensed permanent residents in the country if they're here on a visa of some sort that's what it sounds like we're talking about is immigration status in the united states okay um councillor maguire thank you um so i've spent a lot of time sitting in school gyms uh processing school registration paperwork and when kids are registering for school they come in usually with their parents um and in order to prove their residency in the school zone they present either a lease agreement or a utility bill there are other documents that are accepted but those are the most common ones um schools never ask students or their parents anything related to their um citizenship or immigration status for a couple of reasons one which is not super relevant here is that the supreme court has ruled that undocumented immigrants have a constitutional right to a public education but also um that's a that's a lot of work to put on um school staff and it's a lot of work to put on our city staff uh to try and determine the immigration status of individuals who are being put on boards of commissions i feel like we're already adding an extra step here by asking folks to prove residency by showing a utility bill or a lease agreement or whatever um and and adding in a requirement that staff has to to try and determine um whether they they are are documented immigrants or undocumented immigrants uh is is muddying the waters far too much counselor davis thank you mayor just briefly the very key difference there and you hit on part of it i think councilmember mcguire is that children are constitutionally entitled if you're going to offer free school to um most kids in the district you're going to offer it to all the kids in the district regardless regardless of their status it's a service that is offered by the government the difference here is that we are inviting and requesting people to become a part of the government it's a different thing it's a different role and i i understand that the point is very well taken about the owner's task of verifying i think we do exactly what we do with residency you you click the box and say i'm a lawful resident of the city of denton um the we we to a point we take your word for it if it requires validation you you produce a document it's a it's a utility bill um i don't think we need rosa to necessarily or rosa staff to to dig into well you know where are you in your application process and we're going to need you to get your immigration attorney on the phone to prove us your status um there's a lot of ways to prove status folks are required to do it for other things other than school registration they're required to do it for a number of things and i don't think it's an especially owner's requirement for someone who does have status to ask them to show whatever particular document is that grants that status so again trying to be as inclusive as possible while recognizing the role that we have as the city government okay anyone uh council member pro temelter yeah thank you i know i'm going to disappoint some people by saying for me this is not about making a political statement either way about legal status to me the language that is currently in the rule it just overshoots the mark the purpose is to get people on boards who are part of the community resident covers that it's all we need and okay 18 and over i'm so i'm i'm fine with the uh the motion that's on the floor but not the amendment that's not considered yet councillor berg i'm thinking that uh the conversation is a bit garbled for me in that i thought that the primary concern was whether or not a person was or is a um authorized voter and so when you're a voter and you are an authorized voter which by the way there's a tremendous effort to um discourage people from voting right now we are not passing bills we're turning things back um and particularly it's aimed at the african-american community because we're high voters so uh it's a bit personal for me uh to watch all of this unfold before our eyes here in in 2022 but i think that the uh i think that the um that we need to keep that in mind um that the requirement is that you are a a registered voter um i can agree with someone being a citizen or a um you know a resident of the community because we're here but we have to keep in mind that this document is also saying that you are a registered voter so let's add that to the context and once we do that all of those other conversations would be moot because they are registered voters so i don't know how this comes into play with this uh discussion uh i do agree with um you know someone being 18 or older even 21 and older which makes them just a tiny bit more mature uh that they can be able to contribute to um some of the things that are going on in some of these boards and commissions um but the idea of you know us fighting in in in the in you know in the in allowing uh is just a bit garbled for me so i don't know where i am right now on the discussion because we've kind of going around the bush here um but i am thinking that i'm agreeing somewhat in the in disagreeing i don't know where i am confused about it but um i don't i'm not sure if i will be voting yes on this matter okay counselor back thank you mr mayor i i think like uh often the case counselor uh bird has hit on the common man uh question uh that maybe a lot of us and drilled down to it and i really appreciate that about her um i think it if you have not voted in what is it one or two years your voter registration lapses that does not stop you from being a resident of denton does not stop you from being an american citizen for god's sake but you could still advise a board and commission and if for some reason you were choosing not to vote in your voter registration lapsed i i think counselor bird unintentionally hit upon a really crux matter here um i think you should be a resident of denton to advise denton but voter registration i think for reasons i didn't even think when i made the motion is a road too far so thank you thank you thank you counselor bird for highlighting an issue that i didn't even conceive of that's probably more important than what i was conceiving of so uh i'm gonna stick with my motion because resident and 18 older still matches that but i think she's hit on something it's really important that you can be an american citizen and a resident of denton and not a voter okay anyone else uh so the the motions out there need a second no the amendment the amendment the amendment yeah so uh there's a there's a motion out there need a second seeing none and i'll i'll speak to why i didn't second but the that that the motion to amend dies for want of a second um and that takes us to the underlying motion original motion we have a motion by counselor beck second by counselor maguire discussion counselor davis i i'll be voting no but i will point out that i think the way that it stands correct me someone if i'm wrong is that it's still just the draft ordinance that's in our backup which does not include the over 18 the draft you added that very good thank you for that clarification thank you uh and so for me i think it's important to note uh so every everyone and i've mentioned this before a couple of weeks ago but i do want to read it because everyone that sits up here has to notarize and swear and attest to the following i swear that i will support and defend the constitution and the laws of the united states uh of the united states and the state of texas i am a citizen of the united states eligible to hold office such office under the constitutional laws of the state blah blah blah and so for me it just it informs who i and i it's incumbent upon me to hold up to that oath uh for people that i am nominating but for this process uh that then allows every other council member to make decisions and do analysis the way they want to and they can um kind of come to decisions the way they want to uh everyone's elected and everyone's accountable to uh the electorate and so that for me works and so uh it'll inform my decisions but that's why i'm fine with uh this language it's not you know how i draw it up in playbook but it's it it works it gives me the room i need to appoint the appropriate people that i need to appoint uh to serve the city well council member you've talked a ton we're gonna we're gonna move forward uh any other discussion seeing none council member beck how say you council member McGuire i'm councilor armature yes yes and by the way and by the way council member bird i'm back council member council member bird you're being council member bird you've been acknowledged please council member bird would if you would speak nay okay thank you count uh uh mayor putzman melzer aye council member davis nay mayor hudspeth is an an i that passes one two three four five to two takes us to uh our next item which is uh item b id two two one four two consider adoption of the ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation confirming the effective period of declared state of local disaster uh related to the covet 19 emergency as provided in ordinance number 21-2801 i'm sorry ryan you're muted all right sorry about that mayor and council ryan adams chief of staff we don't have a separate presentation for this item uh we did review everything in our earlier work session report again this is a draft ordinance for council's consideration to extend the provisions related to mask requirements from the 18th order which expires on the end of january january 31st through march 31st and in considering this item council may adopt it as presented it may modify either the date to which it extends these provisions or any other provisions within the order or it can take no action and let the current order lapse at the end of january thank you and i'm happy to answer your questions thank you any questions for staff or i'll take a motion councilor armature i am moved to approve is there a second councilor beck i second motion by council member armature second by council member beck any discussion seeing none councilor armature i'll say you yes mayor mayor i'm sorry to interrupt this is rachel yep i have a caller for this item i'm sorry i'm i don't know how i missed that you'll give me a second i'll get steven dillenberg on the line for you thanks hello are you there yeah i'm here uh yeah if you give your name and address you'll have four minutes okay great uh give me just one second um so first i'm gonna play for you guys uh some testimony that was given i need your name and address first please okay okay yeah sure my name is steven dillenberg i reside at 1004 abbott lane um so again first i'm gonna play for you guys some testimony that was given and streamed yesterday at a round table for u.s senator ron johnson in regards to trustworthiness of the cdc as kind of a follow-up to my previous testimonies with you guys so i'm going to play that now it's about two minutes um and then i'm going to make some brief comments afterwards 9 28 2021 project salus weekly report project salus is a defense defense department initiative they take all this data that doesn't exist supposedly and they give it to the cdc they're watching these vaccines in project salus in the weekly report the dod document says specifically 71 percent of new cases are in the fully back and 60 percent of hospitalizations are in the fully back vendor we also have on that date and around that date i have numerous instances where Fauci and that entire crew were saying it's a crisis is unbacked it's 99 percent unbacked in the hospital this is corruption at the highest level we need investigation the secretary of defense needs investigated the cdc needs to investigate it and thank you so much senator for having the courage to stand against these special interests apparently one of the whistleblowers is ready enough to come forward and give a name or i would not have allowed you to come yes senator so we've got three whistleblowers who gives me permission at this point to share the names lieutenant colonel dr carissa long do mph dr samuel sigloff and lieutenant colonel dr peter chambers deal and flight surgeon all three of the have given me this data i have declarations from all three this data is under penalty this is under penalty of perjury we intend to submit this to the court uh we have substantial data showing that uh we saw for example miscarriage has increased by 300 percent over the five-year average almost we saw almost 300 percent increase in cancer over the five-year average cancer is not being talked about except for by dr ryan cole thank you doctor we saw this one's amazing neurological so neurological issues which would affect our pilots over a thousand percent increase a thousand ten times ten times rating obviously that's 83,000 per year i'm sorry 82,000 per year to 863,000 in one year our soldiers are being experimented on injured and sometimes possibly killed dr corey thank you so much for your stance on the corruption that's precisely what it is they know this and senator uh when these doctors are attacked they call me i'm the one dealing with the medical board i'm the one watching the witch hunt i'm the one fighting them off and i'm the one telling them where to go i'm gonna keep doing that so to briefly recap the cdc has since 9 28 21 been receiving data from a d.o.d um initiative projects sallis s-a-l-u-s indicating a 300 increase in cancer and miscarriages post vaccination and a 1,000 increase in neurological issues post vaccination that reconciles why my mom had a stroke it doesn't make sense of why they still won't report it to theirs as of 9 28 21 they also said 71 percent of new covet infections documented and 60 percent of hospitalizations were among the fully vaccinated they continue to mess misrepresent data to congress and to the public stating we're in a pandemic of the vaccinated unvaccinated 99 of hospitalizations are unvaccinated and the vaccines are safe and effective none of which is true i'm asking you guys to protect us i'm asking you guys to consider that there's been a 15x increase in the amount of redactions from scientific journals specifically related to the efficacy and dangers related to wearing masks and i'm asking you guys to make them and that's your forward i'm going to direct this one thing okay i'm gonna i have one last thing to say i'm going to direct 30 seconds remember davis okay it will be um council member davis you're a district attorney you should be very familiar with the constitution article two section one of the texas constitution states the powers of government the powers of government shall be of the state of texas shall be divided in three distinct departments each of which shall be confided to a separate body of majesty to which those which are legislative to one those which are executive to another and those which are judicial to another and no person or collection of persons being of one of those departments shall exercise any power properly attached to either of the others except in the instances here in expressly permitted you are you are a judiciary officer thank you very much and serving in a legislative role i ask you to resign sir thank you okay have a great evening okay that uh let's go back um so council member armator i'm assuming you still motion approval yes council member beckham assuming you still second discussion anyone else seeing none councillor armator i'll say you yes councillor beck aye councillor maguire aye councillor berg aye mayor portin melter hoping armacron crashes sooner so we get to change this but aye councillor davis aye mayor hutsworth is a nay as well that passes five to two okay takes us to item thank you takes us to item d uh we're going to take them in uh reverse order so taking item d first which is id 22196 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas amending the fiscal year 2021 2022 budget an annual program of services of the city of denton to allow for adjustment of the capital improvements program good evening mayor council cassie octon director of finance i have a brief presentation for you i'll share my screen really quickly can you see my screen yes thank you okay so here tonight to ask for your consideration of a cip budget amendment for our north lakes park tennis center construction um this will be an increase of 1.3 million um and just a little bit of background on the tennis center you may recall we took bids out in fall of last year and only received one bid that qualified city council rejected that bid on november 2nd and parks rebid the project with additional alternates and so the lowest bid came in um at 5.2 million resulting in a 1.3 million dollar funding gap which is the the increase that we're asking for for the cip budget amendment tonight so um with that if you have any specific project questions gary packen is here to answer those and happy to take any other questions you have on the budget amendment okay uh questions for staff councillor davis here i'll hold off if there are others have questions i'm ready to make the motion got it councillor bett i'm just clarifying for the public that this is a way of starting the program now um and not waiting until the the full activation of the bond money it's a way to get going earlier is that correct correct so this project was budgeted in the 2014 bond program it was included as 12 courts 12 tennis courts um and so the base bid includes 10 tennis courts the uh first alternate includes two tennis courts getting to the 12 um but we did receive community feedback asking for more pickleball courts so that was the other two alternates um and so we have 3.9 million already budgeted included um in the cip but to start the construction now we need an additional 1.3 million i appreciate that it'll be cheaper if we start sooner rather than delaying thank you okay any other questions for staff councillor davis thank you mayor i want to give a shout out to bob romagosa who emails me regularly to tell you and tell me how many pickleball courts we need in denton and how we have missed the boat because it's on espn already um and i will move approval of the item that's awesome councillor bett i second okay we have a motion by council member davis second by council member beck any other discussion uh okay very good and i'll second i you know all you have to do is say we need pick it's for pickleball and i'm in uh it's a big thing so councillor davis how say you aye councillor vett aye councillor maguire aye councillor armature yes mayor pochett melzer aye councillor burt aye mayor hutsworth is a i as well that passes seven zero takes us to item c which is id 212802 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton to declare the intent to reimburse capital program expenses of the general uh general government with tax preferred obligation or certificates of obligation thank you mayor city council randy clingle treasury manager for the finance department i also have a brief presentation for you uh there we go for today we are reading the reimbursement ordinance to the city council for consideration following the budget amendment that is just approved um for the north lakes tennis center the purpose of a reimbursement ordinance is that the law requires the city to formalize its intent to reimburse excuse me reimbursement i can speak reimburse itself there we go with uh bonds to be issued at a future day generally we try to sell the bonds within 12 months of the adoption of this reimbursement ordinance ordinance which we will do and definitely by the end of the fiscal year and the reimbursement of the ordinance process is allowed by our debt policy currently what we are looking at for today for the general obligation fund projects for the capital improvement program is the parks to the center of the 1.3 million dollars cassie just presented to you from the 2014 bond election in addition from the 2019 bond election which is already in this year's current budget two million dollars for the parkland purchases so we're looking for a total of 3.3 million dollars for this reimbursement ordinance for this fiscal year once the council considers this and it is approved the treasury's next steps are to review the bond sale items with the bond oversight committee in february and then bring back to a and bring back to this council in april an adoption of the notice of intent of ordinance for the co issuances and in june they will have a parameters ordinance brought forward to the council for the general obligations and their certificate of obligation bond sale the bond sale is expected to be in july with to receive proceeds um towards the end of july for this fiscal year and that is my presentation if i have any questions councillor beck i'm i'm going to move approval as presented because this is a fiscally responsible way to to not waste money by delaying okay is there a second uh councillor berg i second thank you motion by councillor beck second by councillor berg discussion seeing none councillor beck i'll say you aye councillor berg aye councillor maguire aye councillor armatuer yes councillor davis aye mayor parton melzer aye and mayor hutzpah has an aye as well that passes seven zero thank you uh that takes us back in order at item e id 22152 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with jago public company good evening mayor city council my name is scott beddick i'm a project manager with capital projects i'm going to share my screen real quick have a quick presentation all right is it you see it in full mode yes sir thank you you bet all right here to for the award of a construction contract for the third and final sector of the 2020 street bundle a little bit about the project overview on this there will be multiple street segments for this project including roadway reconstruction wastewater upgrades and water upgrades some of those streets will include northwood from east mckinney to paisley east hickory from exhibition to rebel east oak from bradshaw to northwood and of course east mckinney from crofford to odger lane so this project was advertised as a csp or a competitive field proposal we received four qualifying proposals for this project and among the four jago public company was selected as the most qualified for this project schedule for this project design was completed in november of 2021 this project will go to public utility boards on february 14th and that's due to january puv meeting being cancelled with a contract approval today we want to give a notice to proceed in february with a substantial construction completion in december of 2022 and a final construction completion early january 2023 with that staff recommendation is approval of a contract with jago public company and the amount of just over 7.2 million which will include the five percent project contingency and with that i'll stop sharing and any questions okay questions for staff seeing none then i'll move approval is there a second councillor mayor pertin melzer yeah i'll second okay motion by mayor hudspeth second by mayor pertin melzer discussion i'll just say i'm really excited about the bradshaw component wood component those streets are in i mean it's we say it all the time in bad shape but that's really needed so thank i'm excited about that whole kind of segment there so thank you all very much for for getting this done and working through the process yes sir okay any other comments okay uh mayor hudspeth aye mayor pertin yeah mayor we're in complete agreement on this aye thank you uh councillor bett aye councillor mcguire aye councillor armater yes councillor davis aye councillor bird aye i appreciate uh district one getting that attention that they need and indeed thank you okay uh that takes us to item f which is id 22012 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the execution of a contract of sale between city of denton as buyer and michael davidson and penny davidson uh for the purchase of 71.034 acres good evening mayor and council diana cody deputy director of development services real estate is the uh presentation reflected properly yes thank you awesome all right we also have gary packen director of parks and recreation on the line in the event uh there are any questions for relating to park programming at the end of the presentation this evening we actually have one presentation for uh two consecutive and related parkland acquisition items for independent consideration items f that we're looking at now and then also item g here we see an overall map showing the wider subject area there we go uh showing the wide uh the wider subject area along heartley field road east of sherman drive and adjacent to clear creek the area outlined in green is existing city-owned property and the area in red shows the two subject tracks being considered this evening the adjacent tracks are owned by michael and roger davidson who are father and son um next slide in march of last year parks and recreation department identified the subject tracks as potentially suitable for connecting and expanding the clear creek natural area the new mountain bike trail and for future recreational programming prior to bringing this item to you staff conducted due diligence including ordering title work appraisals and environmental assessments on the properties the next two slides depict close-ups of the location of the subject properties item f that you're seeing right now relates to the purchase of the larger 71 acre tract bordering the creek and owned by michael davidson item g which is shown here uh is the second subject track which is a six acre heavily treed site carved out of the larger track that we just saw and is owned by the son roger davidson the larger track had quite a bit of debris as you'll see from these pictures on the sites there were tires metal scraps and discarded construction materials there were also a few vehicles on the property so um as is typical and customary when we're purchasing large tracks of land a phase one was ordered on the site and then a phase two was conducted and those results were reviewed by the city's environmental management department which confirmed its findings as this site will need to be remediated and surface debris cleared and transported to a landfill that clearance will be coordinated with the environmental management and sustainability department park staff estimates that uh the city's remediation cost will be approximately two hundred thousand dollars and the seller has also agreed to participate in site clearance as well by removing all of the vehicles currently stored on the property the negotiated purchase price being lower than the appraised value reflects the anticipated cleanup costs the total purchase prices are one million ninety thousand four hundred fifty five dollars for the 71 acre tract and 102 000 for the six acre tract if the items are approved the properties will be purchased using park bond bond funds excuse me so in conclusion staff recommends approval of items f and g to authorize the city manager to execute the contracts of sale with both property owners if approved the next steps are closing would be anticipated within 45 days from execution of the contract that concludes staff presentation okay thank you uh councillor bet thank you mr mayor i don't know how many people descended on gary telling him about this property coming available last year um my my feeling was it was a lot and and gary jumped on it along with the real estate and i'm glad because it's going to provide connectivity and fill in sort of park infill which is a which a weird goal uh but it's it's a delightful goal to have park infill so uh with that uh i'm i'm really excited to move approval thank you is there a second uh mayor yeah happy to second uh but i also have a question if i may certainly thank you uh am i understanding the map correctly or you know with the presentation uh in that there's there'd still be like an island that would be left there is chris if you can go back to slide two there is a um and a third independent owner um staff did approach this property owner to see if he would be interested in in selling and he vehemently said no yes that tracked there that's uh does that property what's on it the the island there there is a house on the property the the property owner purchased it and he and his family are remodeling the home on the site and so they said they're just they're not wanting to sell at this time and is there a driveway a way to get in and out there is an access easement yes that they have and that's that's what they're using for access to the sites wow well they uh they're gonna have some real quiet neighbors okay thank you okay any other questions for staff can we uh buy some bright strobe no just kidding just kidding let's do it council member davis i was just just going to tell gary make sure you check that other map we were looking at and make sure no he's trying to put a road through this deal for sure that's right too all right great so we have a motion by councilman beck second by mayor pimp melzer any other discussion okay councilman beck i'll say you aye mayor pretend melzer aye council member maguire outstanding work on this staff i am an enthusiastic yes councilman armature another enthusiastic yes council member davis i see he's not enthusiastic councilman burke there we go there's some enthusiasm got it got it and mayor hutzpah is uh uh enthusiastic enthusiastic yes that's seven zero and six one when it comes enthusiasm um so this takes us to item g which there's no presentation but it's id21 pardon me id 22014 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the execution of a contract of the sale between city of denton as as buyer and roger davidson for the purchase of six acre track of land uh council member davis i want to very very enthusiastically move approval of this item awesome okay is there a second uh mayor pertin melzer i'll second second got a motion by council member davis second by council member mayor pertin melzer any other discussion see none councilor davis i'll say you aye mayor pertin melzer aye council member beck thought we were doing enthusiastic guys so enthusiastic councilor maguire i'm less enthusiastic because it's a smaller parcel but still council member armature yes all right and council member burke aye and mayor hutzpah designs well that passes seven zero as well thank you uh takes us to our last item before concluding items that's item h which is id 22244 consider adoption of the ordinance of the city of denton related to the first amendment to the development and consent agreement with with uh vs development uh llc and denton county municipal utility district number 16 establishing fire protection services and other related matters for denton county municipal utility district number 16 and providing an effective date good evening mayor um see councilor edwards fire chief uh very brief presentation is that visible now yes sir okay so this is just a uh presentation of first amendment to development consent agreement between vs development getting kind of mud of district number 16 so a little bit of history on this council members this was uh roughly 500 plus acres that is located in city of denton city j division two so it's going to be located right west of highway 156 and uh on western highway three so per texas water code per mud can be created it does require a defined fire protection improvement last summer the city of dent fire department was petitioned by the district and the developer to provide fire protection for this area a fee will be levied by the district and will be related to the city of denton and used offset the eventual capital and operating costs to provide fire protection this area the services move financial will be worked out this is uh for your approval on execution of this agreement be a one-time cost of 300,000 executed within 30 days and the fire protection service capital fee is more than performance based based on the developer for each single family home built when the water permit is pulled and they will pay 70 dollars into an account to be held for eventual future use towards capital to construct a fire station and one single family 250 per multi-family unit house or apartment so each door park four dollars that's not per building and then each store commercial unit is a thousand dollars so total build out this is what the estimate has been developed based on the build schedule and cost also there will be an annual fire tax that will be levied against the homeowners at 16 cents per hundred dollar assessed valuation based on the number of watts which is 1587 watts 20.9 would estimate to recover generate revenue shot of 800,000 dollars and pay for personnel uh coverage would be from future fire station 9 which is designed right now so council gave direction back on the second second to move forward on this the screen highlights an eight minute response time not mud what i want to highlight is meadows and this mud 16 same night is this purple area shaded here west of 156 i would like to highlight also this area up through here is exactly still dense city limits so our city limits does reach out all the way to across the street from these mud that's being created as well so this would be the response area from future station 9 until that's done that should be from the other stations within the city oh yeah this map just shows other proposed muds from dental services they're kind of capturing today of course and literally last slide i have here is current fire stations in the red um host future fire stations you know 9th airport and in the future will we see a future station out on west 38 you can grow not just with muds but with industrial area and future connection and with that that is all i have i'll stop sharing if there's any questions okay thank you councillor davis thank you mayor and chief i'm having just a little bit of trouble understand you kind of a get down the well kind of a sound um but can you tell us a little bit about how the fee is calculated um and obviously you've got some projection on what you expect it to be but can you help us understand how that translates into firefighters and drivers and engines and fire stations yeah i'm sorry about the sound i don't know what's going on so we're really about some two different categories we and now there's a train from there's a capital fee so that's going to be associated with the cost of the capital products as far as the fire station and the fire engines themselves and this is not going to pay for for a full complement of a station and engines this is just a piece what we envision is this will kind of offset some of the cost of fire station nine eventually future fire stations him the fire tax obviously is the same thing it's kind of performance day so as houses are added to the area there's more fees assessed per homeowner and then we envision um this particular mud would cover approximately six to seven firefighter positions for this one but once what we're looking at is as these mud drill out there is going to be beneficial to try to partner with others and kind of have economies of scale and kind of generate the point that we're actually bringing in ready enough to fully fund um the full station with enough personnel which would be six to eight personnel is it possible that future station 10 could be a joint effort kind of like our our efforts in the southwest or something we could work with another jurisdiction to to build and staff we have always envisioned that we have to have a future station in that area where we're proposing it's right at 48 and vegan right now that doesn't put us on the edge of our jurisdiction so puts us a few miles away from city limits right now there's no jurisdictions within that close proximity the front of the north and the pondering south so even in interim if this agreement is approved we'd still um work with them to provide coverage until we have future stations on the ground that provide really the best customer service to the residents thank you okay councillor maguire my apologies if you just addressed this i was struggling to understand you um but uh uh this is on my mind because um of an issue that came before the county commissioner's court recently um where an individual called 911 for a medical emergency it sounds like you're already aware of the situation and um she lived in in an unincorporated area which had contracted with one fire department to provide ems services but there was another fire department that was much closer and could have come but did not and her spouse uh passed while they were waiting for an ambulance to come from farther away um obviously you know proposed fire station number nine is much closer to the location that we're talking about than was the case in in that situation but i can't help but notice that crumb is much closer um why are they not working with the crumb fire department they did actually fishing from officer i guess it's just like anything they're looking for the best deal with the amount of capabilities and capacity so we are actually working with county emergency services ponder and crumb to look at an interim solution but from the time this contract will be executed until that future station can located out on western brady will be constructed so we're looking at an interim solution to get the closest unit which would be uh county department whether crumb or ponder so yes we are very familiar with that case that lady ashley she arrested from um across the hall here we were able to kind of help record the right direction to the two fire departments along with didn't kind of try to mutilate for issues of concerns and we know that's relevant we want to send the closest unit this is more i think in the long term um for the benefits of the city of denton to help find a station that we see will be out there eventually anyways so this will offset some of the future cost thank you for that clarification councilman beck thank you and this is along the line of the same sorts of questions i think obviously um the entire community irrespective of denton crumb pond or whatever everybody wants everybody to be safe and everybody wants whichever services can respond to a fire or a medical emergency respond and we'll worry about the costs later but let's let's let's go back to the cost is this i think you were we were getting at this um is this set to a level that will ostensibly be revenue neutral or revenue positive for us to service outside of our our our city limits like this the eventual goal is to be revenue neutral but it is going to take the addition of other muds to achieve that let's read at this point we're proposing the use of fire station 9 when that is actually fully constructed operational along with partner other jurisdictions and and so just in a sort of hypothetical if if these muds weren't there would we be anticipating putting fire station 10 out there or are we sort of getting pulled in that direction because the muds that are surrounding us need servicing so even if it's revenue neutral we're still having to put our own resources this is for long-term strategic planning and not this particular item per se but it's something that should go into our thought processes if our fire stations have to be on the periphery to match muds that are not us does that make sense what i'm asking can i jump in for just a second here um i think one thing to share is that the muds that we're working with plan to annex into the city obviously it's not going to happen right away here but the other side of the coin here is when the city isn't looking out far enough and planning far enough ahead we're still responding to calls out in these areas and we're spending a lot of time with our staff both fire and police that are um are helping in these areas outside the city limits and it's in the number of calls particularly for fire has increased exponentially um if you look at the town surrounding us and wonderful chiefs by the way and and staff they don't have the resources now we just recently met talked about trying to draw a line so to speak where we could kind of have something for the future to look at where they're going to build and they're going to grow and where we build and we grow so that we're not duplicating services but we are also complementing services so where chief is looking nine and ten we would be working with our folks our friends and and um uh is it ponder prosper i get those two mixed up ponder and then our friends in crumb so that we're not overlapping but the other thing is we can't continue at the rate of the calls and you saw chiefs you saw chief chief dickson's presentation i think chief hedges has one that shows the number of calls if you're interested in seeing it and how everything is increasing so it's a matter of being prepared down the road but it's also a matter of we need to make sure we have adequate resources if we're going to continue to get these calls and these groups have planned to annex into the city so eventually they will be citizens of the city of den and i think that's the point i think if i can put words in his mouth that councillor davis was trying to get to so i appreciate that city manager okay i would like to comment councillor rebecca we do foresee a station out there regardless of the muds even if they do not come in we see a future station out on west three eighty from just within six minutes okay thank you councilmember so i i'm not a fan of muds but i am a fan of keeping people safe and i move approval okay is there a second councilmember bet yeah i'll second uh discussion councillor davis just real briefly uh that last slot next to last slide five if we take a look at that i think we see something a little bit closer to our growth pattern than what our future land use map looked like earlier in the evening so just superimpose that map over the top of that green bubble we'd like to have around that and i think it's a lot closer to the real picture okay okay i have a motion by councillor armor to second by councillor beck any other discussion seeing none uh councillor armature i'll say you yes councillor beck aye councillor maguire aye councillor davis aye councillor bird aye mayor portin melzer aye mayor hudspeth is as well past the seven zero thank you uh that concludes our uh agenda for today that takes us to concluding items uh councillor davis i want to say a big shout out to all the cub scouts who built their pinewood derby cars last weekend and raced them and then there's another round coming uh this weekend so keep your eyes peeled to your facebook feeds you're going to see a lot of really fast or uh maybe just cool looking not so fast carts cars awesome uh councillor maguire thank you um i just want to wish a happy birthday to my daughter who will be turning 30 on thursday and i also want to wish good luck break a leg to uh all the prospective unt students who will be auditioning for the college of music this weekend oh wow excellent uh anyone else mayor i just have one thing to announce i don't know that you all know this but your um wonderful uh helpful assistant over there working in the city secretary's office miss kathy uh y'all know kathy don't you she is leaving us um she is leaving us to take a job um is in crumb she wanted to go back and work in development services and they just lured her away and rosa wanted me to make sure i mentioned this because she's really struggling you could tell with the throat and all um and we're just heartbroken but kathy wellborn will be missed and um she's been a true uh wonderful worker and just has been a delight to work with um and we're going to miss her but you know and when you get an opportunity to do something else that you really have a passion for and you have that opportunity that's why she's doing it so please give her well wishes and let but we are going to miss her and i just wanted to let you know wow thank you for letting us know counselor bet i just wanted to uh uh piggy back on counselor uh mcguire uh it's it's one it's my son that will be applying to the music program so we'll see what happens there good deal outstanding mayor mayor pro tem melzer yeah i just want to uh put it on the calendar in two years to recruit kathy back from crumb yeah right exactly any better job okay uh anyone else okay then uh just want to say a couple things so what i had a chance to go about a new free play downtown i highly recommend that uh that was that was a great experience they did a great job building that out so i welcome them back uh last week had an opportunity to attend the u.s conference of mayors and uh i if miss city manager i'll follow up with you i want to try to do some sort of a follow-up via ryan so i'll get with you on that but just to give you a heads up just kind of capture our summary uh and then uh this week i'll be uh cranking out the are helping participating in the 105th dedication of the habitat for humanity homes so that's great uh they continue to do what they're doing uh i'm participating in some black history programs uh for didn't isd so i'm excited about that opportunity and then we were just talking about the airport and i'm just thrilled about all the stuff that's going on out there the growth etc so if you didn't know uh we've had coach saban uh bring his plane as alabama has a smaller plane that landed at our airport and then also i think jimbo fisher's been out here unt is flying out so really a lot of activity going out there uh football wise we have the number one uh recruited linebacker and it didn't run high if you didn't know so that's anthony hill he's he's amazing met him at uh mlk day flag football um tournament he and all the ryan high kids shocker they won but it was it was great good to see them uh and then uh sarah note for um parks and gary that farmers branch is moving forward with that stars concept that has the multiple sports so they may be a good resource for information just to kind of see okay what's going on there uh and then uh i think that's everything yes so that's everything so it is 8 29 and we'll conclude tonight's meeting. Thank you, thank you everyone.