Good afternoon, and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting
for Wednesday, August 24th, 2022.
With the quorum present, I will call our work session to order at 5.04 p.m.
First item on our agenda in the work session is citizen comment on consent agenda items.
Do I have anyone in the room wanting to speak on consent agenda items?
Seeing none, we'll move on to our work session reports for today.
It is 2A.
We'll receive a report, hold a discussion regarding the city's history of annexations
on the state and local levels.
Hi, Ron.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the commission.
Let's see if I can pull up my presentation here.
Here we go.
They've got numbers in front of it.
That's what I was looking for.
All right.
Well, good evening or good afternoon again.
Ron Megiddo, principal planner with Development Services, here to present to you a boot camp
training for the Planning Zoning Commission regarding annexation.
Before we get started, just really why we're here today is really to continue this training
session for you all.
As you know, annexation is a part of the planning in the city, and we want to make sure that
you have all the information that you need in regards to annexation.
But also, a couple, you know, meetings ago there was a discussion or a case, a zoning
case on University related to a zoning case where it was along a strip of a piece of 380.
And we stated at that time that that was part of a strip annexation.
And one of the commissioners asked, you know, well, what is that and how does that play
into what has happened throughout the city's history?
So we'll cover that as part of this presentation as well.
So but before we get to annexation, I just really wanted to spend a little bit of time
on where that annexation occurs, right?
That occurs obviously outside the city limits in our ETJ, our Extraterritorial Jurisdiction.
Most of you know what that is, but just really quickly, for those that are not familiar with
it as much, the city has an ETJ, and this was established in a city's radius where it
extends from its city limit depends on its population.
So as you can see from the list over here, the lower the population, the less distance
it is for an ETJ to extend.
We are over 100,000.
That was back in 2005, I believe, when we went over 100,000 population in the city.
At that time, our ETJ boundary extended from 3.5 to 5-mile radius.
So currently that's the maximum.
So our city ETJ is, as you see here, extends pretty far, pretty far into the county, and
you can see that some of the city's surrounding then have been surpassed by our ETJ, Ponder,
Crum, Sanger to a certain extent, and then extends all the way throughout the surrounding
areas as well.
A little bit more on the ETJ, just again for informational purposes, there are two divisions
of the ETJ, Division 1 and 2, and that is established by the interlocal agreement between
the city and the county, which was established years ago, where it is in the ETJ 1, areas
within that area, the city has the ability to review platting, subdivision regulations,
and the like.
Outside of that, there really isn't any zoning regulations that the city can enforce.
We can also look at civil engineering plans as it relates to those platting and subdivision
applications.
So again, Division 1 is where we can do that.
Division 2 still remains a jurisdiction of the county, and they review any plats that
is proposed in that area that you see here in pink.
So this is a lot to take in.
I'm just going to try to cover this as much as I can in a very high-level overview, a
history of state annexation law.
Back in 1963 is when the state enacted the Municipal Annexation Act, covers Chapter 42
and 43 specifically.
Of the local government code, Chapter 42 deals with the ETJ specifically, which we discuss.
43 establishes the procedures for annexation.
In 1999, almost 40 years later, there was its first amendment, Senate Bill 89, provided
an amendment to the annexation laws, and actually provided more processes related, requiring
to be annexed, you need to have a different population density.
So there's basis of that in that state bill.
Not till 2007, we had another House Bill 1472 that introduced the ability for property owners
to request or obtain an annexation agreement or development agreement in lieu of annexation.
And I know that some of you know of this, we call it non-annexation agreements here
in the city, and there have been a number of them actually executed as part of what
the city initiated or started back in 2009.
So following 2007, roughly 2009, 2010, as the city started to annex areas, they, we,
the city had to offer these agreements to these property owners, and that was established
because of this House Bill.
Shortly after 2015, Senate Bill 6, it was the beginning of where the legislature was
looking at how to limit the ability for cities to do involuntary annexations.
What they required with Senate Bill 6 basically required landowners and voter approvals for
those annexations to occur.
Again, these are involuntary annexation, those annexations without the consent of the property
owner.
What they would require, obviously in this case with Senate Bill 6, is that approval
by those property owners.
In essence, basically limiting the ability of the city to annex property moving forward.
At that time, Tier 2, we, the city fell into that tier because we are part of a county
that had a population of 500,000 or more.
Now more recently, 2019 with House Bill 347, 347, essentially what that did, it eliminated
those tier, Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Still allowed for voluntary annexation, that would be a request by the landowner.
What it also did was even further limit the ability of cities by requiring 50% or more,
the majority of those property owners that are part of that annexation area that the
city wants to annex have to agree to that annexation by petition.
We would obtain petition and have them sign that petition.
If they agreed, again, more than 50%, then we would proceed.
If not, then the city was not able to proceed with annexation.
With populations, more than 200 population, an election has to be held and that again
required a majority of those voters to vote for that annexation.
Likelihood of that happening will be very difficult.
Any questions before I go into the next slide, which is actually the history of how the city
then grew.
Yes.
Just a clarification, when it says 50% or more of registered voters who own more than
50% of the land, does that mean that the result of the vote has to be a majority and all the
people who voted must own at least 50% of the land?
Yes, very specific.
Okay, so I'll touch on some of these house bills as we go through the next few slides
just to kind of help explain how the city grew and why it did so.
So 1945, this is the city, the city in the middle, of course, in green, primarily the
downtown and areas around the downtown, 1945.
1960, it grew a little bit more.
You see areas around UNT and TW, that area grew, the residential area as well, this is
the area where the universities were located.
Some of the major corridors are also expanded.
1970 is where we started to see strip annexation, right?
So you see them on I-35, the areas that you see along I-35, University, again I-35W, 377
and also I-35E.
So that's where we started to see the strip annexation and really what that purpose or
why cities did that was really to, one, have land use control of those areas.
But also, you know, establish development standards as an entry point for the city.
So you start to see having the ability to control some of that development but also
having some development standards in line with that as well.
But also, as I mentioned earlier, the expansion of the ETJ.
So in 1970, we probably weren't even at 100,000.
So whatever that population was, we were at a certain point of radius of the city in order
for our ETJ to be established.
If the city limit extends out, so does the ETJ.
As long as it doesn't encroach into another city or into another city's ETJ, that ETJ
can continue to grow.
So if you all know Fort Worth, Fort Worth grows pretty quickly and the reason why is
because they had nothing to hit against, right?
So as they continue to grow, so did their ETJ.
And as they grew, so does, again, their ETJ does.
1980, a little bit more area of strip annexation.
You see here now on the west side of University and then further east on University.
We also start to see it here on Sherman as well as Locus.
And generally, the city grew as well.
So as the strip annexation continues, so did the area of the city that you see here.
1990, we continue to fill in.
I think the major area that I saw here is that the airport or the industrial areas,
we start to see that area being brought into the city.
We see a lot of what's happening over here on the east side as well being brought into
the city between 1980 and 1990.
And then in 2000, you see the ropes and wrench property come in and parts of the area along
I-35W as well.
And in 2005, we start to see parts of the Hills of Denham, these master plan community
areas.
This right here, this major area here is part of what our attempt in as far as annexing
part of the Craver Ranch area to the northeast.
You see that, again, between 2005 and 2000, I'm sorry, between 2000 and 2005, you see
that that area has been annexed into the city.
I think also part of what was inspiration, now Hunter Ranch, was brought in.
And then in 2010, there was a major milestone as far as the city's annexation efforts.
Again, for those that were here, the city initiated some annexation, involuntary annexation,
that is.
And you see the map here to the right was the area, and I apologize, it's hard to see,
but you can see that the areas in pink were the potential annexation areas that the city
tried to annex.
And again, with that house bill back in 2007 that was passed, we were required to provide
the property owners the option for a non-annexation agreement.
Now in order to get a non-annexation agreement, you had to have a tax exemption on your property.
So not everybody got it, but those that did took advantage or took the agreement and currently
are not in the city of Denham as of today.
2015, with a continuation of the non-annexation review, those expired within five years, it
soon was extended.
So currently today, those non-annexation agreements that exist are due to expire in 40 years,
so 2040.
So back in 2020, the council extended those non-annexation agreements 20 years out.
But the area that we have here in 2015, as you can see, the city has grown tremendous
since 1945.
We have Senate Bill 6 that was passed in 2015, with that, a lot of the ability for the city
to annex was very limited as far as involuntary annexation.
Most of the annexations that occurred were voluntary annexations by property owners request.
2020, again, not many annexations other than voluntary annexations, again, with House Bill
347 in 2019, the elimination of those tiers ended making it more, not difficult, but more
challenging with the requirements of those 50% or more.
You see that the involuntary annexation basically did not occur in part of the city.
But we did get some annexation between 2015 and 2020.
Those residential developments that you see here circled are the creek side as well as
lake side properties that were, again, annexed between 2015 and 2020.
And then in 2022, our current city limits, those recently annexed properties are the
Birch Track, which was in 2020, and then the Harris Ranch property, which was in 2021.
So those are the areas that we saw filled in, in the last year or two.
Any questions on those slides?
Any comments or?
Okay.
So this is my last slide.
I'm not going to read through all of this.
This is really just, again, the high level overview.
As I mentioned earlier, the Texas Local Government Code establishes the annexation procedures.
It provides all the regulations as it relates to the use of the property after annexation,
the minimum width, the amount of property that can be annexed per year by city.
It also provides involuntary annexation provisions.
We talked about the different population, less than 200 and more than 200.
It also has de-annexation language, and that is covered under Chapter 43, sub-chapter G
of the Texas Local Government Code.
And then lastly, voluntary annexation, a very, you know, something that we see, you know,
are planning to see a lot more as the city continues to grow.
That's covered in Chapter 43.
There's some language in our city charter, but a lot of the procedures are in our Section
275 of the DDC, and the Planning Zoning Commission, as you all probably recall, part of our development
code update to sub-chapter two, basically outlined the annexation procedures.
So a lot of what you see here listed is what was covered in that development code update.
Last point I want to make is with a voluntary annexation.
Once a property is annexed, it comes in with no zoning, but has the RR to be reviewed against.
And those properties will need to come to the city to get zoned, and that is where you
all come in, right?
So you guys will be reviewing those zoning cases as these properties start to develop
and will need zoning.
So that's sort of what I have to cover.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
>> What a great walkthrough history, Ron.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Commissioner Smith.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Ron, thank you.
Great presentation.
I think it'd also be good, just being as a boot camp item, can you talk about some of
the struggles that have kind of come up with development services since HB 347 that we've
run into?
Like I know specifically there was a project that was just north of CH Collins that we
couldn't annex, and they went through the interlocal agreement.
We approved some of the county, some of the things that we were supposed to approve through
the interlocal agreement, but we had no code development standards to hold them against
like traffic mitigation and those kinds of things.
So can you talk about some of the problems that happen whenever we have a property that
we are seeing that is on the edge of the city, in the ETJ, it's on city limits, that because
we can't do annexation, things that get lost within there?
>> Yeah, and if I go off posting, let me know, but I think that's very rare, right?
A lot of developments that come into the city, especially these large developments, they
want to be part of the city.
So a lot of times we'll see them as part of a voluntary annexation, but you're certainly
right.
Development knows that there's development requirements, they're in the ETJ and not necessarily
in the city, they certainly have certain privileges, but still, subdivision is what we can apply,
but when it comes to zoning regs, it's very difficult to do so, and we don't have the
authority to bring that city in, as you already know.
So those are the main challenges.
I don't know how specific you want to be getting to, but yeah, any zoning related items would
be difficult, but we still have the subdivision regulations that we can apply.
>> Sure.
Okay, thank you.
>> Anybody else?
Commissioner Cole.
>> There we go.
Thank you, Ron.
>> Yes, sir.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Great presentation.
I just had one question about ETJ1, ETJ2.
Our gas well ordinance, 500 foot setbacks, does ETJ1 or 2 have to follow that or do they
go to what, 200, 250?
>> There are certain requirements, and none applies in ETJ, division 1 or 2.
>> Fire code.
I just want to make sure the mic catches everything.
Sounds like an echo.
>> Anybody else?
Okay.
>> All righty.
>> Ron, thanks for your work and your presentation.
It was great.
>> Thank you.
Okay, next item of business is clarification of agenda items.
So first one will be our minutes for August 10th.
Any issues, discussions, anything to talk about there?
Okay.
Consent agenda.
We've got two plats on the consent agenda.
We'll move to items for individual consideration.
4A has been withdrawn, so we will not be taking action on that one.
4B has been withdrawn, I believe.
We won't be taking action there.
I know we had a late email come in on that one, so yeah, come on up, Angie, and you can
fill us in there.
Thank you.
>> Absolutely.
Good evening, Chair, members of the Commission.
Just a moment.
I need to update this slide, but prior to our meeting, this is a proposed preliminary
plat for Summerwell Denton Phase 2B.
It's also been called Elan Denton Phase 2B.
It is approximately 14-acre tract that is to be developed with multifamily.
The purpose of this preliminary plat is to establish the boundaries as well as associated
easements with this development.
The applicant did address all of staff's remaining comments, and this plat is forwarded to you
tonight for approval.
Any questions for Angie on this one?
Thank you.
You might as well stay up there because we'll call 4D and have you brief us there.
I believe 4D and E are related, correct?
>> Yes, these two are related.
This is Variance 22-0002.
It is a variance request for a proposed final plat for 4B Ranch.
A brief overview of this request.
This is a subdivision variance request from DDC Sections 8.3.2E1D, which is in relation
to the minimum width of the flagpole portion of a flagpole lot, and then also 8.3.1.E3,
which is in relation to the maximum length of the flagpole portion of a flag-shaped lot.
The applicant is proposing this development, plotting one 5-acre tract of land into three
lots for future single-family residential development.
It is located in our ETJ and is accessed off of FM 1830, and staff is forwarding this to
you this evening with the recommendation of approval.
Any questions on this one?
I'm happy to go into further detail.
>> Commissioner Smith.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Part of the DDC was primarily around emergency services, so emergency services has no issue
with the entrance and exit of that single-family residential area.
If it's going to be plotted out into three different sections, it doesn't bother them
whatsoever.
They're good.
They can do a turnaround there and get out.
>> Yes.
The applicant has provided an access easement as well as that private access easement.
As you get more into where the single-family homes will be accessed, this is serviced by
Denton County Fire, and they've confirmed they are able to serve this.
>> Cool, thank you.
>> Commissioner Villarreal.
>> Are we under the same ministerial restrictions when it comes to voting on a variance as we
are when it comes to voting on platting?
Just curious.
>> Yeah.
I'll let these ladies handle it.
I believe the answer is no, this is not a ministerial thing.
>> That is correct.
So it's not a ministerial function.
We do have criteria included within subchapter two now as it specifically relates to evaluating
these requests, so this is actually probably your first request in accordance with those
newly adopted criteria.
>> Right.
Gotcha.
Thank you.
>> Any other questions?
I'll have you skip over, I guess, to the next one on 4E then.
>> Sorry, I lost my spot.
And then this is the associated final plat for 4B.
This is a proposed final plat for three single-family residential lots in our ETJ.
The lot is accessed off of FM 1830, approximately 1,800 feet to the north of Briar Hill Lane.
Staff has a recommendation of approval of this final plat if the associated variance
request is approved.
If the associated variance request is not approved, staff recommends denial as this
does not meet the criteria for approval if the variance is denied.
>> That makes sense.
Any questions?
Waltina?
>> Just a follow-up response then.
This one is ministerial action.
Okay.
>> Okay.
Thank you very much, Angie.
Okay, we'll go ahead and call up 4F.
Hi, Ashley.
How are you?
>> Hello.
Good.
How are you?
>> Good.
>> Okay.
This item is a final plat for four single-family lots on approximately 4.23 acres.
At this time, staff is recommending denial, but we have no objection to the requested
extension until September 14th.
>> Okay.
Questions here for the extension request?
>> No.
>> Okay.
Thank you, ma'am.
>> Okay.
4G.
Here's Julie's item, which I believe is going to look very similar to what we just heard.
>> You are correct.
Yes.
Hi.
Thank you.
The request is for a final plat 2227.
The property is within the ETJ.
It's for a public facility use.
They do have some items they need to work through, and so staff is recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to their requested extension to September 14th.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
>> Commissioner McDade.
>> Thank you, chair.
As I read this, I'm seeing -- I don't know if this is correct, but it says Harley Field,
and it has the south side of East Sycamore Street in the presentation.
And I have driven Sycamore Street, and I'm trying to find out where those three acres
are.
>> I am so sorry.
Yes.
It is -- it is Harley Field.
Yes.
It is on the north side of town, just north of Harley Field, west of FM428.
I apologize for that.
>> I'm good.
I'm good with that.
>> Okay.
>> Thank you.
Anything else for Julie on this one?
Okay.
Thank you, Julie.
Let's see.
4H has been withdrawn, so we will not be taking action there, taking us to 4I, which is Julie
again.
So.
>> All right.
Okay.
This is PP2221.
This is a preliminary plat for a proposed multifamily use.
They do have some items that they need to work through, so staff is recommending denial
of the request.
However, we have no objection to the requested extension to September 14th.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
>> Thanks, Julie.
Questions on this one?
Okay.
>> Thank you.
4J is Ron's item.
>> Yes.
Chair, members of the commission, this is a final plat request for a single lot, just
south of Jim Crystal.
As you all probably remember from the last meeting, this was approval with a condition
that the alternative ESA plan be approved by city council at their next meeting, which
was August 16th.
The city council did approve that alternative ESA plan, 7-0, therefore staff is just bringing
this back for formal approval without a condition.
So that's what the purpose of this item is for.
So it's basically to move approval of the plat and eliminate the condition that we put
on it.
>> Right.
Amend the notes that was attached to the plat as well as remove the condition.
>> Right.
Okay.
Commissioner Pruitt.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Just help refresh my memory.
I think this may have happened with one other application a few months ago that required
us to come back for an additional meeting.
Am I remembering that correct?
Is that the same consideration?
>> Yeah.
I think it was an SUV, from what I remember.
>> But it was a conditional -- yeah, but it was a plat.
>> Multi-family request.
So yes.
So when we have plats that were approved with conditions and the condition we believe has
been satisfied, then we are putting them back on your agenda to acknowledge that the condition
has been satisfied, therefore removed so that you can take final action on approving the
plat.
>> Okay.
And just educate me.
For normal conditions, if there's not a financing deadline with the applicant, it could be handled
through the next regular scheduled meeting without issue?
>> Well, it's going to depend upon when the condition was satisfied and then when the
plat is resubmitted to us, and then we work with the applicant on trying to get it on
the next available agenda as quickly as we can.
>> Okay.
It's just amazing how many hoops we jump through.
>> Well, and part of this is a result of interpretation of state law.
So in each city, might handle it slightly different, but here in Denton, our interpretation
of the state statute is that in order to remove the condition, the body that approved it with
the condition needs to be the body that removed the condition.
>> Okay.
Thank you very much.
>> Well explained.
Thank you, Tina.
Okay.
Any other questions for Ron on this item?
Okay.
Thank you, Ron.
Let's see.
I think that was it for our individual consideration items, moving us to public hearing items for
tonight.
5A has been withdrawn.
We will not be taking action on that.
So 5B, I'll go ahead and call Julie up for that, and we can get the overview of that
and answer any questions you might have.
>> Good evening.
Let me find my presentation.
All right.
Good evening.
Julie Wyatt, senior planner.
I'm just going to do just a quick overview of the project.
If you have any questions about it, I can certainly answer those, but we'll definitely
talk about it more fully at the regular session.
So this is PD221, the reserves at Magnolia.
The subject property is located -- it's outlined here in yellow.
It's located just south of I-35, kind of situated in the near east side of town, kind of south
of downtown.
The request before you tonight is a planned development with a base zoning of R7 district
in order to facilitate a multifamily project with 60 dwelling units.
Staff has analyzed the project, and we looked at it in terms of the Denton 2040 comprehensive
plan.
It is consistent with those goals.
The future land use map is neighborhood mixed use.
It satisfies our infill goals, our housing goals, and our urban design.
But as we were analyzing it, we did look at other parts of the comprehensive plan.
It had some really robust conversations with staff talking about how this area should redevelop
and how the surrounding property should fit into the development of this area.
There is going to be a text-dot expansion, which will take the frontage of the adjacent
commercial properties and could leave remainder properties.
And so we talked to the applicant about how this project and this property could fit into
an overall planning of this area.
And we're going to talk about that more fully in the regular session, but did want to just
drop that in our conversation.
But ultimately, we determined that because it met the criteria for approval in the comprehensive
plan, we are recommending approval tonight of the request, and I'll be happy to answer
any questions.
Questions for Julie?
All right.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll call item 5C and invite Sean up to give us an overview of this public hearing
item.
Good evening, Chair, members of the commission.
I'm just going to get the presentation opened here.
Make sure I open the right one.
Apologies.
Here we are.
Okay.
So Sean Jacobson, Associate Planner, here to present S210005 Teasley Lane Multifamily.
This is a project located off Teasley Lane, north of the intersection of Teasley Lane
and Hickory Creek Road.
This is a request for a specific use permit for 95 dwelling unit multifamily.
This is proposed within the SC, suburban corridor zoning district, which does permit multifamily,
but requires a specific use permit, and therefore the question before you is whether this satisfies
our approval criteria for a specific use permit.
Staff has analyzed it against those criteria and against our 2040 comprehensive plan and
determined that it does meet those criteria, does align with our comprehensive plan, not
only with the community mixed use, land use designation for that property, but it also
helps to accomplish some of our other 2040 comprehensive plan goals in terms of creating
greater mobility and accessibility within this area.
So certainly go into more detail in the main session, but happy to answer any questions
you have now.
Questions for Sean?
What is the height of this building?
I don't recall.
I know four stories is what's being proposed.
Yes, so the height of this building is measured based on the average, because it is actually
built on a slope, and the height of that comes in at or below the permitted height within
the SC zoning district, and I'm just going to check and confirm that exact height for
you, and I'll have that answer for you.
Okay, that's fine.
Secondly, talking about buffering, as I was reading through the backup material, we've
got some constraints on being able to buffer this property, correct?
Yes, ma'am.
Can you give an overview of that, please?
Absolutely.
Happy to elaborate on that.
Thank you.
Yes.
So, and I'm actually, just to help with that, on this slide here, you'll see in the northeast
and northwest corners of this property, there is both significant floodplain, which we discussed
last week, as well as a drainage area.
So all of that is within drainage and detention easements.
That does not permit new fencing, and it does limit what landscaping can be proposed.
And so, as we'll discuss further, the applicant did propose trees where possible in that area,
but it does limit what can be provided in those areas in terms of buffering.
Technically, our code actually does not require buffers where easements are present, but the
applicant has sought to provide them to the extent possible.
And on that note, that reminds me, there was an updated landscaping plan sent out recently,
right?
Didn't we get that maybe today?
That is correct.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
You'll have that as part of your presentation tonight.
Yes, ma'am.
The new items?
Okay.
I think that's all of my immediate questions.
One more.
So access is challenging to me as what it looks like.
So there's an easement, from what I understand, on the east side, is that correct?
That is coming off of Teasley?
So this site is actually designed to have multiple cross-access easements, which actually
gives it three points of access to Teasley Lane across the surrounding commercial areas,
and also allows residents here to access most of the surrounding commercial areas without
having to use Teasley Lane.
Well, if you're coming off of Teasley, though, that's how you would access this property.
Let's say you're traveling from downtown and up Teasley and towards this property.
Yes.
So you'll have an access on the immediate side, I guess, in looking at this property.
It would be the east side of this property, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And this is, just so I understand, there's something being built there now, right?
A car wash or something, Tommy, something or other, right?
And this is the lot directly behind that, correct?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Yes.
So you're using that same driveway?
Yes.
There is a shared driveway that is actually used by the car wash and by the Einstein's
bagel and that.
So sorry, if you can see here, there is an initial driveway that opens onto an access
easement.
So if you can see here.
So initially you would enter here and then this is an access easement that serves the
car wash, the Einstein's bagel, and the medical clinic down here.
So this and that actually connects also up to the pharmacy here.
Okay.
And then the only way to get to Hickory Creek is through the commercial lot?
Either through the commercial lot or if you go out onto Teasley.
But if you didn't want that product.
Right, turn right onto Teasley and then go to Hickory Creek from there.
Okay.
You could also access Hickory Creek by going through the commercial lot.
Right.
Go through sprouts and all of that.
Okay.
Yeah, just give me that high question in the regular meeting and I'm good.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Chair, I'll spread a point that I was thinking about in preparation for today.
What is our, I don't know if it's a pre-tim question or what it is, but when it comes
into letting a multi-family development empty out into a commercial lot, what do we do on
traffic, not necessarily on mitigation, but we do a traffic analysis of how many people
are going to be cutting through the parking lot there in front of sprouts to get down
to Hickory Creek and go through there.
Isn't there a piece of that that has to go into public safety of using a commercial lot
that is going to have foot traffic going through there?
Isn't that a consideration whenever we're talking about having basically a right of
way or a thoroughfare through a commercial lot for that purpose?
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I believe I understand that.
What is the safety analysis done to say this makes sense that they should even be connected
in the first place?
So one of the things within our code is that we actually encourage cross-connectivity in
part to break up the number of vehicles using any one route.
Sure.
That is certainly something we encourage.
And then in terms of actually passing through a site, as with anything, sites are expected
to be designed when they come in for safety of vehicles passing through.
So we don't necessarily have a specific analysis for vehicles passing from one site to another.
The expectation is as we're approving the design of each site that that site is designed
to handle safety passing through.
So when Sprouts was designed, these access easements were actually in place and put in
place at that time.
So there was always the expectation that there would be vehicles coming from those access
easements and down into this lot.
Can you think of any other location in this?
I can't.
Top of my head, Sean, that is a multifamily property that adjoins to a commercial use
parking lot that allows that access to, I'm guessing, I think, Hickory Creek is a primary
arterial, correct?
Yes, sir.
So I just don't, I can't think of anything that has that specific instance to be able
to, I don't know, justify or qualify in my head of, is that a safe area?
Is there something that's existing now that I could say, well, it does it there now and
it's safe, therefore it gives me some more comfort within saying that that's okay.
I can't say that I have a specific example of that off the top of my head right at this
moment, but I'll be happy to have a response for you at Public Hearing.
Yeah, and I totally understand that easement was there already and that makes sense.
There's some thought given to it.
I recognize, I understand, I drove the lot, but it just seems a little bit somewhat reckless
for that to be there without having some other context maybe, so thanks.
Absolutely.
I was gonna say, Commissioner Smith, if I could add to Sean's response and correct me
if I'm wrong, but I believe Razor Ranch comes to mind, but I know that there's some streets
in that area, but I know where we have multifamily that is integrated with the commercial development.
On a site like this, the access has been master planned with how the drives have been laid
out with sites that are this deep where you have this kind of configuration and with our
conference of plan goals for the community mixed use within this area.
This is actually a well laid out site to be able to accommodate the smaller multifamily
development project with the commercial development that is there, so that's why when we reviewed
this as well as taking into consideration the TIA, and I believe the TIA did address
the commercial access points and it looked at the multifamily plus the commercial sites
along the front edge to evaluate the access as a whole and was supportive of this type
of development, so hence why we believe it's appropriate and it's consistent with our conference
of plan and meets our other design standards.
Okay, thank you.
My only point, Razor was the only thing I could think of in my head that was close to
it, but Razor does have what aren't technically roads, but feel like, look like, have curbs,
stubbed out roads that you wouldn't see people just walking back and forth willy nilly with
not really much concern of their own public safety, whereas something like parking at
Sprouts and walking into Sprouts and those areas having now access to a multifamily area
feels different than Razor Ranch, and that's why I was trying to see if there was something
like that, if we can look into it and bring it up that'd be great, if not, I totally understand
there's been a TIA that's been done, I think it still might be slightly reckless, but we'll
talk about it.
Thanks.
Yeah, I think, yeah, if you could add maybe that to your presentation or something, because
to me it's a little bit odd that we're gonna encourage access to Hickory Creek for a multifamily.
I understand a master plan for commercial uses and whatnot and all this shared, but
adding, I mean, it's what, 100 units, roughly, I think, 95 units, that's a lot of people
going through a parking lot that has a lot going on in it.
We've got drive-thrus, we've got, yeah, with fast food and Starbucks and a busy grocery
store and a dentist's office and all of that, it seems a little bit irresponsible of us,
the way that's laid out, to encourage access to Hickory Creek without using Teasley Lane
as we've put on here, so definitely have some concerns there.
Commissioner Pruitt, did I see your hand up?
Yeah, just real briefly, if you're looking for similar properties, I think on the west
side of 377, north of 35E, there's a similar thing where, that coffee shop that opened
a couple years ago and behind that there's some multifamily, so that may be worth looking
into.
Thank you.
Commissioner Anderson?
Thank you, Chair.
Hey, Sean, thank you.
If you're looking at the map of the property, it looks about like 9, 930 on the map, it
looks like there's a gas well, is that gas well been capped, is it an active gas well,
if so, is it within the 500, outside of the 500-foot boundary?
That gas well is beyond the 500-foot boundary from this site and that was one of the first
things we checked and confirmed.
Okay, thank you.
And it is active, from what I understand, correct?
Yes, that is my understanding.
Yeah.
Any other questions for Sean on this item?
We've given you a little bit of homework, so thanks.
Okay, we will, I'll call 5D now, Z220006 and ask Ron to come up and give us the briefing
on that.
We can answer some questions.
Do we have any?
Thank you, Chair.
Members of the Commission, this is a zoning change request for a property located at the
northeast corner of US 380 and Thomas Egan Road.
The request is to rezone the property from R2, Residential 2, to Light Industrial Zoning
District, and again, the property is here outlined in yellow on the northeast corner
of Thomas Egan and University.
It's approximately 9.56 acres, currently undeveloped.
The applicant is proposing to develop it as an industrial use, specifically an industrial
use building with an industrial use building.
Just to note, the property also owns two of the tracks north of this subject property.
The future land use designation of the property is Light Industrial, and the area that's circled
in red is the area that we're referring to, or where the project is located.
For Light Industrial, the description is primarily for light industrial activity that has adequate
access and provides easy transition for the area.
So again, with that being said, the proposed zoning change request to LI does meet the
development code criteria for approval, as it is consistent with the future land use
map and the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan.
It's consistent with the LI purpose statement zoning district.
It's not expected to create or generate significant adverse environmental infrastructure or physical
impacts, and at the time of development, infrastructure and utility will have the ability to serve
that area in its capacity.
Notifications were sent out for the zoning change request.
As of this afternoon, there has not been any responses received in writing.
With that, staff recommends approval, and I'll stand for any questions.
Ron, with the applicant's concept plan that was provided in our backup, that looks like
it's taking into consideration the other two lots?
That's correct.
To the north?
They're wanting to zone this property first, and then following the zoning of this property,
zoning that property into the city.
Those two lots are currently outside the city in the ETJ?
Correct.
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
That was a good question.
I saw that the property north of it in the concept plan weren't probably north of it
in the ETJ, so we don't really get to see it within this scenario.
In the conversation in the sense of ETJ and city limit property, on the interlocal agreement,
what is the stipulations that kick off to do an environmental study because of that
riparian buffer that's on the east side of that property there?
Is ETJ developed land and possibly the need for retention ponds and runoff and that kind
of stuff come into that when it's ETJ developed?
As it relates to the subdivision regulations, there will be some.
I can tell you that the applicant will be here tonight to answer any questions.
My understanding is their intent is to bring that into the city, so it will be reviewed
under the development code.
Okay, so if this zoning was approved tonight, then they're going to bring those other two
properties that are in the ETJ now as voluntary annexation, and then it'll go through platting,
which would then have the environmental analysis done at that point in time.
Correct.
Okay.
All right, great.
Thank you.
Any other thought that I had?
Can they develop without bringing those two into the city?
They certainly can.
However, with what they're proposing as a single building, having it cross city lines,
that's unlikely, so therefore, it is probably to their best interest to bring those properties
into the city.
Okay.
Thanks.
Any more questions for Ron on this one?
No?
Okay.
Well, you can stay right there, because you get the next one, 5E, DCA220004.
All righty.
Chair and members of the commission, this is a public hearing item to bring forward
a code amendment related to parking.
This item, as members of the DCRC are familiar with, has been discussed with that committee,
and we're bringing it forward with their recommendation.
Before we get to the code amendments, I wanted to spend time with a couple of slides, that
is, and kind of talk a little bit about why we regulate parking.
Again, this was a presentation we did back maybe a month or two ago.
Parking regulations are really to provide that off-site parking, off-street parking,
that is, requirements to help mitigate traffic, to enhance the vehicle bicycle and pedestrian
safety as well.
It encourages multimodal transportation, reduces the runoff, addresses water quality and heat
island effect, and again, with some of the requirements for landscaping and screening,
it also addresses the adverse potential for visual impact as well.
In the development code, there are certain requirements that are exempt from parking,
specifically properties that are less than 5,000 square feet of lot area.
Any residential development that's proposed in the MD zoning districts, as well as any
non-residential development that is proposed in the MD zoning district are exempt from
the parking requirements.
If there is a property owner that has a development and sees the benefit of not providing as many
parking or maybe wants more parking, there are alternatives that they can pursue up to
50% from what is established by the parking code.
I won't go through the list, but you can see that there's opportunities from location,
but also if their particular development has a specific use that requires a more lesser
parking amount or a higher parking amount, they can submit a parking study to the parking
director and that can be reviewed under the development code parking alternative sections.
With that, we'll go ahead and get into the parking code amendments.
The reason why we're bringing these parking code amendments is really to identify certain
uses and providing them with a more accurate or actual parking needs for that particular
use, but also to address some of the provisions and regulations that we need to clarify a
little bit more or further refine as part of these code amendments.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, the DCRC, Development Code Review Committee, has met on this item
on parking in particular.
You see here there are four dates, specifically February, March, two in March and one in April.
Then the list that you see to the right is really the section of the code, which this
code amendment is proposing to amend or add.
With that, I'm going to go ahead and get started on what is being proposed.
I know this is a work session item.
I'm going to go through it fairly quickly, and if there are any questions, please let
me know, but I'm just going to highlight some of those changes.
I felt to mention or I know that these are the uses that we will be covering.
I'm not going to read all of them.
I just wanted to give you just a highlight of what is upcoming.
The first one is the use type, which is under bars, taverns, lounge, private club, restaurants,
and restaurants with drive-thrus.
Currently the existing requirement is one space per 200 feet for indoor seating area
and one space per 300 for outdoor seating area.
Staff is proposing a whole different approach in the requirement and basing the parking
requirement off of the building code's occupancy load number, also providing one space per
employee at its highest shift, largest shift, and then also addressing the need for additional
parking for those pickup spaces or Uber Eats or whatnot and folks coming in and picking
up their order rather than sitting in the restaurant.
I think this was important to share.
I know that one of the commissioners asked that I share some examples of how this applies
and what happens if the proposed code were to be implemented, so I have a couple examples
for you to share.
The first one, the first restaurant, and when I was looking for restaurants, I was looking
for my favorite restaurant, so this is one of my favorite restaurants, so Hawaiian Brothers.
A fairly new restaurant was completed in June 2021.
It is part of an adaptive reuse, so as you all probably know, if you're familiar with
the area, it was once a taco cabana or tropical chicken, whatever it was, so now it is Hawaiian
Brothers.
It has a very small seating area, indoor and outdoor, you see that if the existing requirement
of the code was applied, they would only require six spaces, and that is their minimum requirement.
That is not enough.
Obviously, that doesn't even cover the number of employees, so what they have on site currently
is 55 spaces, and again, it's an adaptive reuse, but still, it was the same building
and nothing really changed as far as the square footage.
The internal building may have changed, but the external footprint did not.
Using the proposed requirement, if we were to apply the proposed requirement of one space
per four design occupancy load, the occupancy load based on the building code is 75.
That translates to 19 spaces.
With 15 employees, that's another, obviously, 15 spaces, and then with the reserve parking
for the indoor or people coming in to pick up their orders or if there was a delivery,
there's five spaces dedicated for that, they would be required 39 spaces, so we feel, staff
feels that the proposed requirement fits more on what the actual need is for that particular
restaurant, for this particular restaurant.
Again, they're at 55, so they're well past the 39 that what this proposed code amendment
would require.
Another favorite restaurant of mine is In-N-Out.
It's more of a drive-through restaurant, and Haley was able to help me with this one.
It's a little bit bigger seating area.
They have both an indoor and outdoor.
Again, if we were to apply the current code, they would only be required to provide 10
spaces based on the indoor seating area of one space per 200 and then the outdoor seating
area of one space per 350.
The development itself was developed in February 2017, and what they have on site is 64 spaces.
Doesn't look like it, but when you count all of them, that is 64 spaces on their lot.
Using the proposed requirement with, again, one space per four occupancy load, they have
a 93 occupancy load with four spaces for each, divided that is, you end up with 24 spaces.
Now, they also have 15 employees at their largest shift, that's an additional 15 spaces,
and then again, the five spaces that we discussed earlier, that brings them up to 44 spaces.
What they have today is 64 spaces.
This is a new development.
It's not an adaptive reuse, and why they have more than what is required or what typically
is required?
I can tell you that obviously this is part of the razor ranch development, so there is
not the requirement that they would typically, if they were not part of that razor ranch
overlay district.
Another example of how this proposed amendment would apply to an existing restaurant.
The last favorite restaurant is IHOP.
We have IHOP here, larger seating area.
They don't have outdoor seating, but they do have a large indoor seating, but even with
that indoor seating, one space per 200 with 2300 square feet, that doesn't really give
them much, so they would, I apologize, that shouldn't be four, that should be 12, so they
would be required 12 spaces.
What they have on site is 66 spaces.
It must be a very popular place, because this aerial, when it was taken, basically covered
all the parking spaces, and I did count all of them, and that is 66 spaces.
Again, using what we would apply if this proposed code amendment were to be approved, again,
using the 217 occupancy load, the number of his spaces would be 55 with the 10 employees
and then the five parking spaces, you're at 70, so they're actually four short if we were
to apply this, but looking at their site, they probably need additional parking for
that site, seeing that the aerial is filled with their parking.
Any questions as to how a requirement such as the parking that we're proposing would
be applied?
>> Commissioner Anderson.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Ron, are you going to grandfather in any other businesses, for instance, industrial street
downtown, roosters, fuzzies, that's going to kill them, they don't have -- there's no
parking.
>> Right, and again, those are, from my understanding, are part of the M.D. zoning district, so,
yeah, and if they were not, you know, those would be grandfathered in -- yes.
Again, I mentioned earlier, M.D. zoning districts are not required to provide additional parking,
and we know that that's the case for that area and around downtown as well.
>> Okay.
>> Well, and these changes are not affecting existing businesses unless they do a full-on,
what, over 50% remodel?
>> Correct.
The trigger for those, yeah, and I'll confirm me that's covered in subchapter one of our
code, but most likely these would apply for --
>> Yeah, we're talking about new development.
>> New development.
Yes.
>> Commissioner Prout.
Okay.
>> Okay.
>> Thanks, Ron.
So I'll briefly go through the other ones.
This one I felt we needed to spend a little bit more time just to show how it applied.
We're also looking at the craft alcohol production.
What's required, as you see there, under existing, we feel that one space per employee on the
larger shift is more appropriate, plus one space per four, again, design occupancy load
to address those folks that are visiting that particular use in either for seating and tasting
or if there's any food preparation as well.
So that would be included as part of their parking requirement.
Food processing generally is a large type use, almost similar to warehousing.
So if -- when you see the next few slides, we're proposing one space per employee, again,
to address the employee need, plus one space -- I'm sorry, not plus, but rather, or one
space per 3,500 square feet.
What you see now is roughly one space per 1,000.
The 3,500, if you're wondering where that came from, there was a lot of discussions
with other -- we're looking into other cities, but as we have seen new developments come
in in regards to these types of uses, the applicants often request a parking alternative
and often enough, they come around one space per 3,500 square feet.
So we felt that that was a good number to use, and again, based on other cities that
we've researched, they tend to be around that same number.
Again, I won't go through all of them, but again, manufacturing, you see the same proposed
requirement, wholesale warehousing as well has the same requirement for proposed parking.
So we jump to residential uses here now.
Town homes, duplexes in manufactured home development, staff is proposing to reduce
that number from four spaces per dwelling unit down to two spaces.
We feel that these types of developments are more suitable for two parking spaces rather
than the four, largely because they are somewhat typically smaller in size when you think about
town home use versus a single family, similarly duplex or a manufactured home development.
Adult daycare is the first one.
Again, just hearing from some of the new businesses, the recent businesses, their parking requirement,
they're needing more spaces for not only their employees, but for the visitors, and you wouldn't
think that there are a lot of visitors, but when parents come in or there are some volunteers,
there are also needs for parking as well.
The next big one here is religious assembly.
It is based on one space per 250 square feet of gross floor area.
It's very hard to, when you calculate that, what is what area, I mean, are we looking
at the whole building?
Is it part of the building where there's congregation or there's assembly?
So rather than use that code or use that requirement, we are proposing one space per four design
occupancy load per the building code, and as we spoke during the DCRC meeting, we shared
with them how that building code is applied in determining the occupancy load.
There are ratios for standing areas, there are ratios for seating areas, fixed and non-fixed,
so again, whatever the building code will allow for people to occupy space, we feel
that that's a better option in determining the parking requirements because we know that
those are the number of people that will be there or can be there, and therefore we're
saying it's one space per four occupancy load.
So that's what staff's proposing.
I think the next few are related to the schools, and as you all know, the schools, all of them
are different in nature as far as their uses, what their programs are, so rather than determine
what their use is in coming up with a parking ratio, we feel that we would allow them to
make that determination and submit to the director a parking study, and based on that
parking study, have an approved parking requirement for, again, that particular project or development.
Similarly, with the private school and public school, a lot of discussion with the DCRC,
we met with, I met personally with some of the DISD staff members, them providing me
with the information and what they need.
We actually used the Den High newly constructed high school as an example for the future high
schools that we will see, and based on that development and what their needs are, we used
that in determining what our parking ratio is.
So real quickly, elementary or middle school, it's one space per 12 students.
High school is one space per two student capacity, and with all that, plus one space per employee.
So we want to make sure we accommodate the employees on the larger shift, and then plus
guest spaces determined by the school.
Again, we want to give the school the flexibility in determining what that number is.
Some schools have other programs that we're not familiar with, so that would accommodate
where those guest parking spaces will provide.
Moving on to section 794, this is a director determination.
We are proposing to add this as part of the director's ability to review a parking alternative
to reducing the number of spaces for uses that are listed in the table.
So those tables that are preceding this section here require a minimum amount.
If the applicant chooses to reduce that amount based on that ratio, they can submit a parking
study under this section, and the director can determine if that amount is appropriate
or not.
And again, this is just to provide that section or that ability for the director.
Last item on the code amendment is to add multifamily dwelling under one of the parking
alternatives under infill.
As part of the infill and redevelopment projects, what that does is if they're proposing a multifamily
development, and again, it's part of an infill redevelopment project, they can reduce their
parking spaces up to 10%, again, per this requirement or per this section.
Previously, it was not included.
So with that, I know that was a lot to take in, but that is what staff is proposing in
terms of the parking code requirements.
I'll stand for any questions.
If I could just add to Ron's presentation.
So first of all, great job, Ron, summarizing all of that, because I know the DCRC worked
really hard in evaluating the proposed parking ratio adjustments, and I know there's been
several e-comments that have come in this afternoon to the commission expressing concern
regarding some of the parking minimums that are being established and just parking requirements
in general.
And I think the challenge that we have, and it's just not debt, and it's other cities
as well, right?
But it's the challenge we always have is establishing an appropriate parking requirement for uses
throughout our community that are in different contexts, right?
Whether that's more of an urban setting, whether that's more of a typical suburban setting,
or if it's somewhere in between, right?
And trying to find a balance with what we establish as a parking requirement.
We believe what we've proposed in working with the DCRC is a reasonable parking requirement.
I know bars and restaurants were recently expressed of concern in some of the e-comments,
but we're trying to strike that balance.
In more urban settings, which is like our downtown area, and I know you asked about
roosters and fuzzies, and we have already provisions in place that make it favorable
for them to exempt them from having to have certain parking requirements.
And Ron also shared a list earlier, but I believe we have a variety of different relief
mechanisms, if you will, within the code to allow a property owner or business to be able
to seek relief from parking if they feel that our parking requirement is completely off base.
And so we recognize that having that flexibility in the code is good, because that way we can
take into consideration certain scenarios, given where a property is located.
So I just share that with you, we're sensitive to also walkability, because we realize when
we have more vehicles, more parking lots, more driveway cuts that interferes with people
on bicycles and pedestrians too, for that matter, but we feel like it's appropriate
to take into consideration the context, and that's why we've got other design standards
that come into play when evaluating that.
So I just offer you that.
I wish there was one magic solution to addressing parking.
I've had challenges with parking in other communities that I've worked in, but again,
it goes back to determining what's most appropriate for your community, and in our case, we believe
with what's being proposed, it's a reasonable solution.
We also want, the other thing is we want businesses to be successful, right?
But we also don't want people parking in our fire lanes and blocking access.
We don't want vehicles spilling over into our streets, where we don't want vehicles
parking on the streets in certain areas, but also bottom line, we want the businesses to
be successful.
So we want to make sure that we put appropriate parking requirement in place that we believe
that meets the needs for our community, but also sensitive to having those relief valve
mechanisms built in there.
Yeah, and I think that's great, I know we're getting low on time, so that's wonderful
to share.
I'll just say real quick that it is complicated, but a lot of thought was given over multiple,
multiple meetings and many, many hours of discussion to be able to bring this forward
for a recommendation to city council.
This was done individualized types of businesses with great research by staff, so throw that
out there.
Also, none of this changes the focus of our mobility plan, so that's how it all comes
together.
The focus of the mobility plan that we just updated is multimodal, and it does include
cars and walking and biking, and these proposed amendments, in my opinion and all the discussion
that it was given, does not take away from that focus as we continue growth and enhancing
and making that multimodal model happen.
With that, any more thoughts, questions with Ron, and then we'll get supper before our
meeting.
Commissioner Pritz.
Five seconds.
I noticed that on the craft alcohol production slide, it said one per four designed occupancy.
I believe the red line in our backup only said one per two, so I'm just questioning
whether we need an emailed update of that and be able to refer to that when we make
motions in the open session or something to make sure that's the correct backup that we're
referring to.
Yeah, no, just really quickly, I did see that, Commissioner Pritz, I think the intent was
to follow what was proposed for the parking for restaurants, and so I think when we were
proposing parking initially, it was one space per two, but when we moved it to four, we
just didn't carry that over to the craft alcohol, because it does basically serve the same purpose.
So it's one space per four.
Thank you.
Any other questions for Ron at this moment?
Okay.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
We'll see you in public meeting.
With that, that ends our work session, so I will adjourn us at 617, and we will meet
in council chambers for our regular meeting as close to 630 as possible.
Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for
Wednesday, August 24th, 2022.
With a quorum present, I will call us to order at 636 p.m.
Thanks for your patience.
Sorry, we are a little bit tardy.
First order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. and Texas Flags.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas flag, one state, under God, one and indivisible.
Thank you, everyone.
Next item on our agenda is consideration of our minutes from our August 10th meeting.
Any discussion?
Motion.
Commissioner Smith.
Commissioner Pruitt.
We've got a first and a second for approval of the minutes.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's vote on the board, please.
If our board's working, let's see, there's a little bit of a delay.
Oh, it did carry, okay, 7-0.
Very good.
That motion passes 7-0.
I'm sorry, it didn't come on my screen, so I did not look up there.
Okay, consent agenda is our next order of business.
Commissioner Smith.
Commissioner Cole.
Hang on.
Commissioner Smith.
I make a motion to approve.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
Got a first and a second for approval of consent agenda.
Discussion?
Okay.
I'm not seeing a way to vote.
Board is having a little bit of a technical difficulty.
That's okay.
Okay.
I can do a roll call vote on this item.
Let's do that.
We've got a first by Commissioner Smith and a second by Commissioner Cole.
Commissioner Smith, how say you?
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Chair, there's also an aye.
That motion carries 7-0.
That will move us to our items for individual consideration.
Our first being 4A, which has been withdrawn.
So we will not be taking action on that item this evening.
Our item 4B has also been withdrawn.
So the same.
We will not be hearing or taking action on that item.
4C would be our next item for consideration tonight, PP22-0020, and I will invite Angie
up for her presentation.
Hello.
Hi.
Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the Commission.
Hold up my presentation real quick.
Okay.
Good evening.
As mentioned, this is preliminary plat 22-0020B.
This is a preliminary plat for Summerwell-Denton Phase 2B.
The approximately 14-acre tract of land is situated just off of Mayhill Road.
It is a one-lot preliminary plat to establish the boundaries and associated easements for
a future multifamily development.
The plat has satisfied all of our criteria for approval, and staff is recommending approval
of this preliminary plat this evening.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any questions for Angie on this item?
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve.
Okay.
Commissioner Cole?
Second.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, are we doing roll call still?
Yes.
Still not.
Okay.
No worries.
Commissioner Smith?
Aye.
Commissioner Cole?
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson?
Aye.
Commissioner McDade?
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt?
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
.
Section 8.32E1D, which is in relation to the minimum required width of that flagpole
portion, the DDC requires that the minimum width of the flagpole portion of the lot be
24 feet wide.
The current property is accessed off of 1830 and has a variable width along this flagpole
portion of the lot.
It is as narrow as 20.5 feet, so the first request would be to request a more narrow
flagpole portion of the lot.
And then the overall length of that portion extends about 905 feet, DDC 832E3 requires
that the flagpole portion of that lot not exceed 300 feet.
So those are the two areas in which this flagpole portion would deviate from what the DDC requires.
Subdivision variances may be appropriate if there is a finding that unreasonable hardship
or difficulty could result from strict compliance of the code or that the development may be
better served by an alternate proposal.
When reviewing the request, Section 287D outlines criteria for approval.
Generally, the lot shall not be detrimental to public health, life, or safety.
The particular physical surroundings shall create a difficulty, not a mere inconvenience,
that the proposed variances do not vary our provisions of the comprehensive plan, the
development code or mobility plan, and that the peculiar conditions are not a result of
owner action, but rather of the site as it is and were not created by the owner.
Staff has reviewed the proposed variance request in accordance with these criteria and are
recommending approval of this request this evening.
I ask for any questions.
Thank you, Angie.
Any questions?
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve.
Commissioner Anderson.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval of this request.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Take a roll call vote.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
OMG.
Hello, thank you.
Angie Manglaris, senior planner.
This is an associated final plat request, FP 220005C for 4B Ranch.
The proposed request is for three single family residential lots to be plotted in our Division
1 ETJ.
The subject property is accessed off of 1830 and is generally 1800 feet north of Briar Hill
Lane.
Staff is recommending approval of this request as the associated subdivision variance request
that we just viewed for this lot was approved and the final plat does meet all of our criteria
for approval.
Happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Angie.
I do not see questions, but what I'd like to say is thank you for the great backup on
both of these.
This is very often and, yeah, the variance was described very well for all of us to be
able to understand and comprehend, so thank you very much for that.
Commissioner Villarreal.
I move approval.
Commissioner Anderson.
Second.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries.
7-0 takes us to 4-F. FP22-0026.
I will invite Ashley up for presentation.
Hi, Ashley.
Good evening.
Ashley Hickok, Assistant Planner, City of Denton.
This item is a final plat for four single-family lots on approximately 4.23 acres east of State
School Road.
At this time, staff recommends denial.
Staff has no objections to the requested extension until September 14th.
Happy to answer any questions.
Thanks, Angie.
I do not see any questions, but I do see a motion.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Make a motion to approve the extension of date certain to September 14th, 2022.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval of the extension request to the date of September
14th.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Chair is an aye.
That motion carries 7-0.
That will take us to 4-G. FP22-0027.
Hello, Julie.
Good evening, Julie Wyatt, Senior Planner with the City of Denton.
This is FP22-0027.
I did want to mention it was brought up in the work session.
There was an error in the caption that mentioned Sycamore.
This property is actually located north of Hartley Field Road, situated in the northeast
side of town.
So, not off of Sycamore, I do apologize for that.
But this is a final plat for within our ETJ.
They do have some corrections they need to make.
So staff is recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to the requested extension to September 14th.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Julie.
Questions?
Commissioner Anderson.
Thank you, Chair.
Is this part of the old Agave Ranch?
No, sir.
This is a little, I'm sorry.
Carter Ranch.
Is that?
Agave Ranch.
No, it's actually just south of that.
So that's a good question.
If you look at the map, the Agave Ranch property is just to the north of this site.
Okay.
That's it.
Okay.
Thanks, Julie.
Thank you.
Commissioner Villarreal.
I move the approval of the extension to a date certain of September 14th, 2022.
Commissioner McDade.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second to approve the extension request to a date certain of
September 14th.
Any discussion?
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries 7-0.
That will take us to 4-H and that item has been withdrawn.
We will not be taking action on that this evening.
Taking us to 4-I, PP22-0021.
Hello again, Julie.
Good evening.
This request before you, PP22-0021, is for a preliminary plat located adjacent to Mayhill
north of McKinney.
It is for a potential future multifamily project.
They do have some items that they have to address prior to approval, so staff recommends
denial.
However, we have no objection to the requested extension and I will be happy to answer any
questions.
Thank you, ma'am.
Any questions for Julie?
I do not see any.
Thank you.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve extension to date certain of September 14, 2022.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Second.
We've got a first and a second to approve the extension request to a date certain of
September 14.
Any discussion?
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
The motion carries 7-0.
That will take us to 4-J, FP22-0020.
Hello, Ron.
Madam Chair, Mr. Commissioner, Ron McGill, principal planner of development services.
This is a final application request.
You are probably familiar with this since this was presented to you last, applying zoning
commission.
At that meeting, the commission recommended approval with a condition that the item or
that the alternative ESA plan associated with this project be approved by city council.
City council did approve this on April -- I'm sorry, August 16th, 7-0.
Staff is recommending approval, again, without any condition for this particular final plan.
I'll stand for any questions.
Thank you, Ron.
Any questions for Ron?
I do not see any.
Thank you.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve.
Commissioner Anderson.
Second.
I've got a first and a second for approval of this plot without the condition.
Any discussion?
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Prudt.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries 7-0.
That will take us to our public hearings this evening.
Pardon me.
Tina was just clarifying with me.
Our boards in front of us are not working.
That's why we're doing roll call vote.
Our secretary is inputting as I take the roll call and then displaying the final vote up
there.
I apologize for the technical difficulty but it looks like a roll call night for the evening.
All right.
Public hearing portion 5A, that item has been withdrawn.
We will not be taking action on that this evening.
That will take us to 5B, PD22-0001.
I will invite Julie Wyatt up for presentation and open the public hearing.
Good evening.
Julie Wyatt, senior planner.
And I am, excuse me, presenting PD22-0001, the reserves at Magnolia.
So the request before you is regarding about a three-acre site.
It's located south of I-35, west of Fort Worth Drive.
The request is for a PD with a R7 base zoning to facilitate a multifamily use with 60 dwelling
units.
The subject property is outlined in yellow on your screen.
It's got an irregular shape, as you can see.
It's also situated in an interesting part of town in that there's single-family dwellings
to the west.
There are established neighborhoods within the city.
There's also a commercial area just to the east of the subject property.
And this area is going to be impacted by text dot expansions.
Text dot's gonna be coming forward with a project in the upcoming years, and they will
be expanding this road, and they're gonna be acquiring properties.
In fact, they already have acquired properties in some areas.
So you can see that area in black, that hatch mark.
That's about where text dot's gonna come in.
And then that commercial area, it was developed around the time that the highway was developed.
So before 1964, it's been there a long time.
And over the years, it's underperforming at this time.
It's been there a while, and it's also gonna be impacted by the highway expansion.
Particularly, it's gonna take down some of those buildings.
And so that's kind of where that property sits, that it's kind of in between these two
areas in an undeveloped tract.
Now, this is a PD, and so with any PD, you have the two parts.
You have your text part, and then you have your map part.
We are not gonna go over the text part tonight.
All of that is within your backup material.
What we're really gonna focus on is that development map, because that's really what they're proposing
to do.
So we're gonna start talking there.
So what they're proposing is a 45-foot tall building, approximately.
It's centrally located in the property, as you can see.
That irregular shape kind of pinches in the south, and it pinches in the north side of
the property, and it has that bulb out in the center.
They have located that structure in the center of that side, along with their parking area.
This configuration that they have proposed provides setbacks to the adjacent residential
properties about 80 feet, both to the south and to the west.
So it provides that setback buffer for those existing properties.
As they've designed their site, they have that main entrance that faces to the south.
So it was intentional, we worked with the applicant to get this project so that it orients
toward that neighborhood, so it's integrated into that neighborhood, kind of pulling it
away from the highway, giving it that larger buffer between the highway and those future
residences.
And so you can see that their entrance, outlined in purple here, that's that main entrance,
and it's highlighted also in their elevations.
And the vehicular access, it's something we've been talking a lot about with projects, and
so I just want to spend a little time on that.
As currently proposed and designed, they are proposing one access point to Willowood, and
that's outlined here in yellow.
And this section is kind of pulled from this area right here.
So they're proposing one vehicular access point to Willowood.
There's also a pedestrian access point there, it connects to that future sidewalk and then
to the existing sidewalk network.
And then there is a stub out to the property to the west, and that would be a future access
point.
And if you can...what the existing conditions are, Oakwood is actually an existing residential
street that turns toward the south but doesn't extend on to Willowood.
Well, once that adjacent undeveloped property develops, Oakwood will have to be extended.
So it was important that they got that stub out to the west so that it could eventually
connect to Oakwood and allow an alternative way to get in and out of the site.
The development plan also includes landscaping.
They have on-site amenities that they're proposing.
As I mentioned, they've oriented the building and the site toward the south to integrate
it to the neighborhood, and also allows tree preservation along I-35.
So there's a really nice cluster of trees there on I-35, and the way they've oriented
their site, they're gonna be able to preserve those in that location.
As part of that preservation, they're proposing a pervious trail so they can amenitize that
and allow it for recreation for residents.
In that area, they're also proposing a playground that's outlined in pink, and a fenced dog
park in the blue.
They've got enhanced landscaping, particularly on the southern side of the property next
to Willowood.
So their detention pond is adjacent to Willowood, but that is the gateway to the proposal, to
the development.
So they've enhanced that with shrubs, with tree plantings around it, and also landscape
boulders to add visual interest, to naturalize the setting.
They're proposing 27% open space.
That's in excess of the 8% that we require in the Denton Development Code, and almost
70,000 square feet of new tree plantings, and that would be in addition to the preservation
area.
The approval criteria for PDs is in subchapter two of the Denton Development Code.
We're not gonna go through all of these.
We're just gonna touch on them, but by staff's analysis, it does comply with the criteria
for approval.
It's consistent with the comprehensive plan.
It provides that greater level of design quality.
It's compatible with the surrounding area, and there are public facilities to serve it.
So first, I wanna talk about the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan.
The future land use map designates the property as neighborhood mixed use, so it's shown here
on your screen, and that's adjacent to that low residential, so that's protecting that
adjacent neighborhood, and then higher intensity future land use designations as you move closer
to downtown, as you move toward the northeast.
So the proposal complies with the future land use, because the neighborhood mixed use is
intended for a variety of housing types, and also that neighborhood serving retail and
service uses.
It also complies with our infill goals.
When this area developed, you've got that residential that developed, as well as the
commercial.
It left this gap in the neighborhood fabric, so this property never developed, and so by
developing it would close that gap, it would also provide additional housing, and there's
existing infrastructure there.
It meets our housing goals within the city of Denton.
This map is a little difficult to see, but this is an affordable project, and this map
shows where all of our affordable projects are within the city of Denton.
The subject property is that red star, and you can see there aren't any affordable projects
in this area, so it really would provide that additional choice and variety within an area
that doesn't have that.
And then finally, it meets our urban design goals.
That's something we always look at with projects.
It meets our connectivity, it's got those on-site pathways, as well as those trails
to the tree preservation area, and that connects to our existing sidewalks, it's got legibility,
it's that one building with the highlighted entrance, building scale and orientation where
they've centered the building on the site, provides those additional setbacks, it's also
allowing that tree preservation along the highway, and then it provides that landscaping
and open space.
Now, our conversation with the comprehensive plan didn't stop there, because as I mentioned
in the work session, we had a robust conversation internally and with the applicant regarding
the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan and just this general area, so I just wanted to talk
through this a little bit with you.
And I'm going to use this map on your screen to illustrate it.
So this area has a future land use designation, as I mentioned, of neighborhood mixed use,
and that's intended for the variety of housing as well as those services.
When staff looked at this area, we saw that there were some properties that were going
to be impacted by that TextDOT right-of-way taking, as well as that they're just underperforming,
they've been there a long time.
And when TextDOT comes in, it's going to leave some leftover properties that are going
to be difficult to develop.
So we talked to the applicant and we asked, "Hey, can you reach out to those adjacent
property owners, see if you could bring them in, see if this area could be comprehensively
planned with sort of some master plan project?"
We talked to them several times about that and they reached out and they are here and
I'm sure they can talk to you about how they reached out.
Unfortunately, they weren't able to get in touch with those property owners to collaborate
either with a larger project or at least connectivity to those sites.
So what we did, it was made sure that the project was set up so that if it did redevelop
in the area in the future, that it would be able to work together seamlessly.
So we weighed all of this.
We weighed our desire for the area to develop comprehensively to really spur that development.
And then we also weighed it against the other elements in the comprehensive plan, particularly
those affordable housing goals.
And the things we considered was this project could serve as a catalytic project for a cohesive
redevelopment of this area.
So this could really spur that redevelopment or it could present a barrier to that redevelopment.
And really looking at their site plan, we felt like it was the former, it was the first
one, that it could spur that redevelopment.
And ultimately, the proposal furthered our other objectives of the comprehensive plan
and the design is compatible with the surrounding property.
We also looked at the public facilities.
It is Willowwood is a collector within the city of Denton.
The proposed use, it's 60 dwellings, so it's not a particularly large multifamily project.
So it generated about 326 trips a day, 19 a.m. peak and 25 p.m. peak.
It's not going to negatively impact the roadway system.
It is in an area where it is within a half a mile walk for students to the nearby elementary
school or a park through existing sidewalks.
And barrier-free ramps and some crosswalks.
We did send out notification.
We've received one letter in opposition and it is shown here in red.
And so based upon the criteria for approval, staff recommends approval of the request and
I'll be happy to answer any questions and the applicant is here with the presentation
as well.
Great.
Thank you, Julie.
Any questions at this time for Julie?
Okay.
Thank you, ma'am.
Not sure exactly who the applicant is and if I have a card for you.
So I will let you come forth and state your name and address and then you can begin your
presentation.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time this evening.
I'm excited to be here.
My name is Matt Gillum.
I'm one of the managing partners of Overland Property Group and we are the developer and
applicant for this community.
Really quick intro on us because who you're dealing with is always a very important thing.
We are a real estate development company that specializes in housing.
Housing from ultra-luxury to affordable, everything in between.
We start off in a small town in Kansas where my business partner and I are from, April
who's on our team also is from.
So we start off with that small town mentality of building relationships and developing based
on that.
And through that track record, we've been able to develop a lot of really creative communities
which have won us national recognition as you'll see there.
Additionally, it's allowed us to develop in communities that you maybe don't think
of for affordable housing like Steamboat Springs, Colorado which similar financing we're using
tonight as you see up on those pictures.
And then many other places across Texas, Kansas, Colorado and the other states we deal in.
We're very deliberate on communities we develop in.
We're deliberate on the properties we develop.
So we take a little longer.
This one, for instance, you can see the Steamboat Springs Ski Resort in the background.
It took about eight years to get our hands on that property and work through that development
process.
First off, I want to thank Julie for the presentation.
That was a great intro and obviously give a lot of factual information and I'd like
to thank planning staff for working so diligently with our team.
This development is in a totally different place than where we started off because of
that collaboration between our group.
So I just want to thank them for that and working with us on it.
So specifically about this development, the Reserves of Magnolia, it is what we call a
neighborhood size development.
So this isn't a 250, 300 unit apartment complex.
This is more of a neighborhood sized and planned community and we like that for a lot of reasons
because you can be individual with people, the interactions are individual, it is more
of a community and not a place you rest your head is a place where you interact and build
each other up.
So this being 60 units, we think it works into the fabric of the neighborhood in a really
impactful way.
The other thing it allows us to do, which I'll get to kind of assembling parcels in
a second, but what it allows us to do is provide a size that does fit into the fabric of the
neighborhood.
It is not a size that is overwhelming for that neighborhood.
We'll see if this plays.
To give you an idea, as we're talking about how it fits into the fabric of the neighborhood,
this is taken at 45 feet, which is the maximum height of the building, and you'll be able
to see, this is looking towards the highway and it will pan around, you are not taller
than the trees that do currently exist and there are certainly some ones that are quite
taller than that, which is why we took so much care with planning staff to try to preserve
as many of the established trees as possible.
That natural buffer that exists against the highway is really important one for that neighborhood
and something that we did not want to disturb.
So again, you can see the site outline here as was so well pointed out by Julie.
As we're looking at the rendering, again, being very deliberate about the style and
design, choosing high quality fixtures, finishes, and that's something we do in everything we
develop.
Our architects here, who just happens to be my cousin, the architecture firm is my father,
my cousin and my brother.
My grandfather is the one who started the firm and so architecture is something that
has always been in my blood.
Beautiful buildings are the fun part of this and so we take a lot of effort into design
and we hope it shows through in those renderings.
Why did we pick this site?
I think it's important to understand that.
We picked this site because of the surrounding amenities.
When our residents are living there, we want to make sure that they're not living on an
island.
We're not putting them out in the middle of nowhere where there's not services, there's
not walkability, connectability.
Where do I want to live?
Well, I picked a place that my wife and I live with our small child because I can walk
to the hardware store, I can walk to the grocery store and that's an important part when we
develop is picking sites that are deliberate because of amenities.
This is one that maybe in first glance you'd say, "Well, it's kind of an interesting location
and maybe I didn't think of it for this," but if you look at the amenities surrounding
it and the walkability and just what those services are, it starts making a lot of sense.
Obviously, you have the ones that jump out at you immediately, the elementary school
and the parks just to the south which are literally two blocks away.
Then you have a grocery store that is within, I'd say, four blocks away and it really starts
making sense and hopefully shows a little bit of why we chose this.
As also, Julie's soul and my thunder which is kind of great, but this is kind of showing
the current zoning of those just to give you an understanding of what is there and obviously
you all know what could be developed there.
Again, when we're selecting sites, we are taking into consideration the directives you
all and your community has put together on how you want things developed, so infill,
making sure we're complying with comprehensive plan.
There's certainly places where we have to be creative and deviate from all the requirements
such as the entries and exits, but our goal is to hit as many and check as many boxes
as possible because it isn't just to check the boxes.
Those things better our residents and our residents' lives, so they're an important
part of the development process to us.
Again, you also talk through these different spaces already, on-site management, supportive
services, community rooms, all of those things that you see typically in a market rate or
affordable development.
Again, we develop the spectrum and we don't treat our affordable developments any different
than we do our high-end luxury stuff.
Energy efficiency is an important part.
As affordable, it's important to have affordable utilities, to not be hit with this massive
water bill, sewer bill, electrical bill every month, but to make sure we're deliberate in
choosing things that are energy efficient, so that resonates through with our entire
design.
Just to give you an idea on the layouts, because there are things that we take pride in and
we don't just slap these layouts together, there are things that we deliberately look
at throughout the years.
While the exterior of our buildings are totally different, our units have been built over
years in fine-tuning door swings and fine-tuning how does this operate with that, and the livability
of our units is what we really strive to hit.
You have 21 bedrooms, 28 two bedrooms, 12 three bedrooms.
From an affordable perspective, we're targeting six units at the 30 percent area meeting income,
22 units at 50 percent, 26 units at 60 percent, and we do have six market rate units.
We like to see that broad spectrum of affordability and market rate all within one building, because
you're providing housing at the end of the day.
What somebody makes does not define them, so we want to be able to be a housing solution
for everybody and that collaborative, "Oh, you live in an affordable complex."
That's not the way we see it.
Our communities are deliberate to target a wide group of people for that community aspect.
That wraps up really my intro.
Maggie, our architect's here to also answer any specific architectural questions.
While I come from a family of architects, I am not an architect.
I wasn't smart enough in school to do that.
Then, unfortunately, our civil engineer, Andrea, is not here.
She's on maternity leave doing more important things, even though we're trying to develop
portal housing.
That's a little more important.
Douglas is actually here to answer any specific civil related questions.
Unfortunately, our landscape architect and tree preservation specialist's daughter, she's
at the rodeo tonight here in town, so she's unable to be here with us.
I'm happy to answer any questions specifically related to the development ownership.
We are long-term owners.
We do not sell our properties, myself and my other business partner.
I can tell you that is not our business model.
We do not sell properties.
We don't turn and burn.
We're looking to be a member of your community, so I greatly appreciate your time this evening
and your consideration.
- Thank you so much.
We do have a question for you on the floor.
Commissioner Smith.
- Thank you, Chair.
Matt, you just said there you don't sell off your properties.
Do you guys operate them after you build them?
- Yes.
- You own and operate them the same thing?
- Yes.
We have an internal asset management division that is constantly visiting the properties
along with all of us.
- And run leasing and all that stuff?
- We're hands-on, yes.
- Gotcha.
Okay.
- The only thing we do not do is construct them.
We hire third-party general contractors.
- Thank you.
- Any other questions at this time for the applicant?
I do have cards filled out from Maggie and Douglas.
Did you all want to come up and speak, or this was all collectively?
- Okay.
- Yeah.
It's all about not knowing, but if you have questions for them, yeah.
- That sounds good.
- Thank you.
- Okay.
Thank you very much.
I do have another card I'm wishing to speak, Jennifer Lane.
I'll invite you up to the podium.
If you'll give your name and address, your time will begin.
- My name is Jennifer Lane, and I live on Willowwood Street in Denton.
I feel a little bit unprepared for this because I understand that there was some outreach
to the neighborhood, but I didn't see any.
I think it must be due to the season, perhaps, that there aren't more people engaged and
involved, particularly in perhaps a community meeting that might be advisable.
So I feel a little bit short in terms of process here, it seems like suddenly before the Planning
and Zoning Commission for a public hearing with the public not necessarily, at least
the public affected that lives in that area, aware.
And I wonder if at least there might be some delay to genuinely bring the area residents
into the discussion, mainly because I think although there's much to speak on behalf of
what the gentleman presented, that some of the things that Julie presented, I think that
the residents in the neighborhood might not entirely agree with.
It was a very dense and thick presentation that she made and went by very quickly, but
if I were to parse it out and take it apart, which I'd like to, I think I would find, and
I think others in the area might find some questions that they would want to ask.
Meanwhile, if it could be perhaps some time taken to allow the neighborhood, because it
is a residential neighborhood, has been for a very long time, it is a zoned for residential
area, I think it's zoned three and four in that area, so this would be quite a big change.
I don't know necessarily that people would uniformly object to it, but I think they'll
be pretty freaked out to have it passed and then suddenly discover it once kids are back
in school and people are back to their regular lives and they look and say, "What happened?
We weren't there.
We didn't know."
So that's basically what I would like to put before the Planning and Zoning Board is just
their request to take a little time with this so that the neighborhood is either able to
express objections or to get on board, because I think otherwise it could be a little bit
of a backlash.
That's it.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Any questions?
Julie, I just want to ask, Julie, I need to clarify something that I read in the backup.
I think you have in our backup where there was a neighborhood meeting.
Yes.
Can you clarify, and that, and yeah, if Matt needs to come down and ... Yes, the applicant
did hold a neighborhood meeting and notification was sent out.
Do you have your presentation there still?
Because I think you have a notification slide.
Absolutely.
Let me ... There we go.
So the red boundary is that 200-foot notification boundary, and then the 500-foot, which receives
a postcard, is the blue boundary.
Subject property is in yellow.
Right.
Okay.
So 42 mail.
Okay.
Thanks, Julie.
Yeah, Matt, I'm going to call you down just to ask that question of you so you can explain.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify that.
I would certainly welcome the involvement and really, really do want that.
I want to make that clear.
So even no matter what the outcome of tonight is, I do want to connect with you and have
the opportunity to talk, and especially with the neighborhood, because we do plan to be
a community member, and so this isn't in tonight or tomorrow.
So we did ... We always try to get as much involvement as possible, and everybody's really
busy, and with COVID, it's been a little more difficult than normal, but just to give a
quick recap.
So we kind of started this process late last year.
So December 29th, we reached out to John Weber, who obviously with Deniab Area Community Group
also sent certified letter notification to the Tremont Circle HOA on the same date.
Spoke with our council member, Jesse Davis, who also suggested we reach out to those folks
so we again tried to reach back out immediately after that.
Did have a resident support city county or city meeting on February 1st, where we received
resolution support from city council on a development like this.
And then on April 15th, we sent certified letters advertising our first neighborhood
meeting to the surrounding residents per the address list that we received from Julie.
So there was 163 of those sent out in total.
And then we also did have a secondary ... So we had that neighborhood meeting on May 10th,
which we did not have anybody show up to.
We did stay on the line for the entire hour and a half and didn't have anybody pop on
there.
We did go ahead and have a secondary neighborhood meeting, so sent that certified mailing out
June 1st and did have one person, Ms. Pat Jensen, who was able to be on and did have a discussion
with her.
And then obviously the notification that went out for the rezoning.
One thing that ... Unfortunately, we are under a time crunch here because we just received
this funding from Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs in late July.
So we received that funding and unfortunately the turnaround on that is very quick.
So we have to be through the rezoning process and prove that up by the end of September
or else we lose this funding.
And it's not a, "Oh, try again next year," although you can try.
This funding actually would go to a development in Dallas.
So the funding, it's federal funding, it would leave the community.
So that's the time crunch we're under.
So really that September 20th is the last council meeting that gets us to that goal.
It's a very quick turnaround, but just wanted to give that update and doing a connect with
you afterwards.
Okay.
Thank you for that explanation.
We are ... Let's see, I don't think council is going to hear this until the 20th of September.
Do you have any plans to host anything further between now and then?
I mean, we're the recommending body to city council and then they're going to hear it.
Do you have plans or can you make plans to possibly?
We don't and it was just simply because we didn't get the engagement on the first two
neighbor meetings, but we are more than happy to do that.
We would welcome that.
So absolutely.
Okay.
Thank you.
I appreciate your candid answers.
Any other questions for the applicant?
I don't have any more cards wishing to speak on this item, but anyone here in council chambers
is welcome to speak on this item if they would like and they can fill a card out later.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak?
Ms. Lane, you already spoke on the item, so ... You can come up to the podium and ask
your question.
Yes.
I think the main question that I have is perhaps why the neighborhood group didn't reach out
to the neighbors.
It's not on that ... In other circumstances, there is usually a newsletter that comes out
once a month.
There was nothing.
It's not surprising to me that no one showed up because it sounds like the outreach failed.
Also, there's a great question right now as to who the city council representative is
for that neighborhood because that's in flux.
One would have expected Allison McGuire to have been communicating with the neighborhood,
but it's understandable why that may not have happened and why the developer spoke to a
city councilor who hasn't been in close touch with that neighborhood and maybe didn't even
think that now was the time to be in close touch.
My feeling is that there probably will be some freaking out by the neighborhood if there
isn't first more outreach to really find out what people feel.
I think the applicant was very candid with you that he will definitely get with you,
which would be great.
As you know, we're the recommending body to city council.
It will come before city council as a public hearing item that will have all forms of comment
and public speaking available when they hear it as well.
Thank you.
I'm glad I have it in today.
Appreciate it.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item?
With that, I will close the public hearing, and I will open the floor for discussion or
a motion.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, thanks to the applicant for the concerted efforts you guys did make out to the neighborhood.
I talked to a few folks who live over there, and that Deena is pronounced by the way, just
so you get a heads up on that.
Don't do it at council, it'll get on you.
But talk to some of the folks over there, Deena, and there's certainly some hesitation,
but I think that doing another reach out, as Chair mentioned, would be good.
But you guys did two opportunities with certified mail along with it, so I think you did your
due diligence where you could.
So with that, I make a motion to approve.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
Okay, we've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Okay.
And I will just echo what I said to you earlier and what Commissioner Smith just said.
Deena's a very involved neighborhood group, so I'm surprised that you didn't get a response.
I would encourage you to reach out again if you can.
Obviously, you did your due diligence in having the meetings that you had went above and beyond
in posting notifications and whatnot.
So yes, thank you very much.
With that, there's no further discussion.
We'll go ahead and take a vote.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Cole.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson.
Aye.
Commissioner McDade.
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries 7-0.
That will move us to 5C, S21-0005.
I will call Sean Jacobson.
You are here for presentation.
I will open the public hearing.
Thank you, Chair and members of the Commission.
I'm just opening my presentation here.
All right.
Good evening, Chair and members of the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Sean Jacobson, Associate Planner, here to present S21-0005, the Teasley Lane Multifamily
Development.
This is a request for a specific use permit for a 95-dwelling unit multifamily building.
The site is located on the west side of Teasley Lane, north of the intersection of Hickory
Creek Road and Teasley Lane.
This is within the Suburban Corridor Zoning District, which does permit multifamily development
but does require a specific use permit for that use.
So your task tonight is to assess that against our approval criteria for specific use permits.
Just looking at our site plan here, this is a 95-unit building, four-story building, and
in response to your question earlier, Chair, based on the way that we measure buildings
that are built on slopes, which is we measure it at the midpoint between the highest and
low point in the slope, the building measures 53 feet, 3 and 5/8 inches.
Thank you, sir.
This site does provide two open spaces with walking trails and benches, one of which connects
to a patio area with tables and a grill.
Overall, over 14,000 square feet of recreational open space is provided.
The site is designed to avoid the floodplain and drainage easement on the site, so no development
is proposed in those areas except for approved addition of trees and a walking trail.
There is also an existing fence on the north line that is planned to be preserved.
No new fences are permitted within that floodplain, but the existing fence is proposed to be left
in place.
There are 171 parking spaces provided, 75 of which will be in an underground parking
garage in order to limit the paving required for this site.
And the building is designed to meet our building standards, including with recesses, projections,
balconies, and other architectural elements to break up the façade and highlight the
entrances.
I want to particularly discuss access and mobility.
This site is designed with three points of vehicle access to TZ Lane through easements
through the adjoining commercial properties.
It does also provide primary pedestrian access to TZ Lane through the adjacent lots in an
access easement.
I just want to note that this site and the two in front of it were actually designed
as an overall multi-phase development with the intent that easements would be used to
provide access for that rear lot.
So that has been part of the design from the beginning to connect with the existing access
easements that were actually put in place many years prior at the time of the development
of the sprouts to the south.
Just want to note here that the site and the access are designed to enable pedestrians
and vehicles to reach the surrounding commercial without needing to pull it onto TZ Lane.
So residents here will be within walking distance of pharmacy, medical clinic, grocery store,
restaurants, and other uses as well as within driving distance, which really does line up
with our comprehensive plan goals of encouraging mobility, walkability, and reducing use of
our streets where possible.
And to specifically address Commissioner Smith's question from earlier, we did identify two
locations in the city that have similar conditions, at 1-3200 South I-35E, where the access for
this multifamily is through adjoining commercial lots on two sides, as well as on Fort Worth
Drive where the access for the multifamily there is through the commercial that is situated
along Fort Worth Drive.
So two examples that we could find within the time gap.
On our landscape plan here, the site shows that they are proposing landscape and tree
canopy above our minimums, 30% in both cases, as well as trees above and beyond our requirements.
You can see the buffers around the edges highlighted in green.
I do want to note that on that west boundary, in addition to the minimum buffer requirements,
there is also a six-foot fence proposed and additional ornamental trees above and beyond
what our buffers require.
As we noted, there are drainage and detention easements and floodplain on the northeast
and northwest corners, which limit the amount of buffering that can be provided there.
Our code actually does not require buffering within easements, but the applicant has proposed
trees to the extent possible in those areas to provide buffering, as well as bushes and
trees just outside the floodplain on that southeast corner, which is at a higher elevation
to provide buffering where possible.
And the applicant is preserving trees above and beyond our required minimum.
So as you know, it's important that we always consider our comprehensive plan and whether
a proposal aligns with that.
According to our future land use map, this is a community mixed-use primary land use
designation that's designed primarily for commercial uses with complementary residential
and other uses, and this proposed development would help to provide that complementary residential
use within the overall community mixed-use area to support the adjacent commercial uses.
It's also located along one of the corridor-focused areas designated by Denton Plan 2040 and helps
to further our goal of encouraging compact growth along that major corridor and aligns
with many of our urban design principles for buildings that are situated along those corridors.
It does also help to further our mobility goals by providing that safe, efficient movement
of vehicles, pedestrians by putting residents within walking distance of places that they
might otherwise have to drive to shopping, employment, so it's consistent with our compact
growth framework and with our preferred growth concept shift towards more mixed-use development,
putting compatible residential, commercial, institutional together in ways that increases
pedestrian activity and reduces those car trips.
So overall, the proposed development does align with both our future land use map and
some of our additional comprehensive plan goals.
It's also important to look at compatibility with the surrounding area.
We've discussed some of the buffering that's provided adjacent to the surrounding residential,
but it's also important to consider compatibility with kind of the surrounding development as
a whole.
So let's look at how this site fits with the overall development pattern in this area.
This is situated within an SC-zoned area that begins at the intersection of Teasley Land
and Hickory Creek and extends north to this site.
Within this area, bounded by two primary arterials, commercial uses have developed or are currently
developing.
The proposed multifamily would bring a supportive residential use to complete this as a true
mixed-use area.
So overall, the proposed use is compatible with the established pattern of development
within this mixed-use area.
We do also need to look at adequate public facilities, so a traffic impact analysis was
performed actually on the combined three sites, so the two commercial sites in front and the
multifamily.
And that did determine that there would be no significant traffic impact on surrounding
intersections from this proposed development.
And so keep in mind that cross-connectivity actually helps to reduce that traffic impact
on surrounding intersection by providing other ways to reach sites within that.
There are five-foot wide pedestrian connections to the public sidewalk.
There is a public park within 0.6 miles of this development, as well as on-site amenities.
And I do want to bring up, there was a question asked in one of the neighborhood meetings,
some concerns raised about this site potentially generating additional trespassing calls.
And so I did reach out to our police research division and our community resource folks.
They did not have data to indicate a direct correlation between the addition of multifamily
and an increase in trespassing calls in the surrounding neighborhood.
And overall, given the information available, the police department did not have concerns
about this development.
We did do standard public outreach and received responses in opposition in favor.
So with that, overall staff does recommend approval with the conditions provided in your
AIS, which are shown here.
Essentially, they incorporate the site plan and landscape plan into the ordinance, lay
out those architectural features that need to be a part of the building design, and provide
some limited flexibility for administrative approvals of minor modifications to the plan.
So with that, that is my presentation.
I'll be happy to stand for any questions.
Thank you, Sean.
It looks like we do.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Sean, thanks for pulling up those examples.
I actually don't agree with those examples in the response that the Avocca coffee roasters
and that the other businesses right there at that 377 development, the entry and access
to that multifamily runs along the side of that.
The other one you referenced was the multifamily that's over next to Cinemark that connects
into Buckees, and it has that nugget way road that operates like a road there where the
parking and the entrance into and out of Buckees is really what would be the concern, other
than folks going through the Buckees area for the gas pumps, they're not going through
where pedestrian crosses, so I still think it's a little bit different.
A good one to bring up, and this brings up a constructive point and a question.
One that I thought of in between WorkSession and now was actually the development where
Best Buy and HomeGoods and all that stuff is over there between Spencer and 288.
Went up in town, and none of us who grew up here took the Spencer to 288 cut through,
maybe to go to buy Chipotle or do whatever else it is, but we cut through there.
There are speed bumps in that parking lot that does slow and create some traffic mitigation
to give pedestrians some safety.
What predicates the need for a speed bump at a parking lot, and then to tie that into
this piece, if there is connectivity between there going to Hickory Creek, which I agree
I think dumping everything else on Teasley, and that has another question, isn't maybe
the best thing for traffic, but what can predicate us to be able to put together a need for speed
bumps or some other speed mitigation through that commercial parking lot area if it's not
owned by the applicant?
Any insight you can give me there?
My understanding is that our fire department actually tends to discourage the use of speed
bumps.
They have some significant concerns about the delays that that can cause in fire response.
In general, the goal has been to use those as little as possible and look for other means
of managing that, so definitely that's something that they've expressed more of a concern about
rather than a desire to increase the presence of those.
I get that on whenever we've had in the past, we've had fire come and talk to us about traffic
mitigation tools like that, like emergency access gates or using speed bumps.
I get the impediment that speed bumps creates emergency services when it's an isolated location
like the Best Buy area where there's not really ... If something happens at Best Buy, you need
to get an ambulance there.
You got nothing other than speed bumps to get to it, but in this property specifically,
with the Hickory Creek access through Sprouts, there would be four points of ingress and egress,
so it wouldn't be the only point of ingress and egress, it wouldn't create an isolation
for emergency services.
To that point, I would still say don't think it necessarily creates an issue other than
access to maybe Sprouts in the commercial areas there, but it still creates a safety
issue in my opinion there, but I think that point's been made, so I'll move on.
What is the latest on the ... Teasley is about halfway through done being completed on its
expansion.
I meant to ask this in a work session, do you have any other timeline about how much
longer that widening is being still worked on, I know it's about halfway through now.
I have to admit I do not know that number off the top of my head, I'll happily defer
if I don't know the exact timeline for that, and I know sometimes that timeline can vary
even for the folks directly involved.
Sure, Teasley's had its own problems, I get it, so all right, that works, thank you.
Any other questions for Shawn at this time?
I do not see any, Shawn, is the applicant here?
Yes, and the applicant does have a presentation.
Okay, very good, I don't think I have a card for them, but I'll go ahead and invite them
up before we get to our speakers.
Okay, I'll go ahead and open that right here.
Good evening, if you'll give us your name and address, then your time will begin.
Sure, good evening commissioners, my name is Blake Carlson, I'm an architect with Design
Resources Group, first I want to thank Shawn for a good presentation and just working through
things with him, it's been a lot of issues and questions to bring this forward and I
just appreciate Shawn's help with that, and I appreciate your time tonight.
So just have some slides and some images I want to go through, again, with Design Resources
Group and Christians in Companies, we've been in development over 25 years, we've done over
4 million square feet of commercial real estate development across 10 states, over 5,000 residential
lots have been developed by our company, 2,700 multi-family units, we typically own and operate
all the units that we build, we have in-house construction, we have in-house leasing, in-house
management, this would be a long-term ownership property for us, just moving on, I want to
just get into a little bit more of the site design, Shawn did a good job of just summarizing
the area, maybe just a few things to note here, this is as it exists, oh, a few months
ago here before construction started, I just want to note, of course Teasley Lane to the
east there, commercial center to the south with all the various grocery, restaurant,
medical, pharmacy, car washes, a car wash is being constructed there as well, it's residential
to the west and northwest, just the property itself as we're looking at the site, there's
a lot of heritage oak trees there that we've been working to preserve, as many of those
as we can, there's a hillside that we're also trying to incorporate into the design
in a good way, the gas well buffer was mentioned and the floodplain, so I think it's a very
beautiful site, it's a challenging site and we think this is a good use for the area,
just a good location for a mix of uses, as was mentioned, the community mixed use, zoning,
future designation, and we think a multifamily unit is a good buffer between the residential
areas and the commercial areas along Teasley.
This is an image of the Platte, we purchased the slightly over six acres in 2020, subdivided
it into the three lots, as I mentioned building a car wash on lot one, Einstein Brothers is
about to start construction for lot two, and again the way we divided this lot up was to
have that higher use commercial along Teasley and then with it being such a deep lot, putting
the housing towards the back.
This is an image again showing the site plan, more specifically the landscaping, as Sean
showed this similar slide as well, again to highlight the accesses.
From Teasley here, if you can follow my mouse here, we see this is sort of the front door
access to the development as you're driving in.
There are actually, there's underground parking in it and there's actually two garage doors
to get in, one on the north end here, there is one on the south end as well.
So just working with what was platted there to the south with the easement and the need
for fire access through the site, that's kind of what drove the access for it.
Just to note, if somebody didn't want to drive through the retail area, you can take a right
and go on the backside of sprouts as well to avoid that.
Kim was mentioned on the west here, we've been talking with a neighbor here about our
proposed buffering, I don't know if Kim is here tonight, but again, we're adding a solid
fence, we're adding large canopy trees, ornamental trees and hedges there.
It's about 100 feet from the property line to the building in this spot.
To the east there's hedges and ornamental trees for buffering as well.
Spoke with some of the neighbors of the housing development to the north recently and they
brought up some concerns, I know a number of them are here tonight.
From that meeting we just understood the desire to separate off that pond area from our development,
understanding that that's a private pond, a private walking path.
So there is an existing fence there, we were going to take it down, but we're happy to
leave it.
There's some limitations on putting new fencing in that area.
We also added some trees in that area in response to our meeting with the neighbors there.
Other amenities were mentioned, the patios are a walking trail, an open space.
We think it's kind of a park-like development here.
There's a lot of green space, a lot of trees.
Site plan here, we won't go into that, it's just a similar view, just highlighting some
of the buffers.
There's a retaining wall and portion of this buffer area as well, a walking path, the existing
fence.
Again, just to highlight a lot of green space, a lot of trees that we're preserving, preserving
as much of the topography as we can, and then the pedestrian connections to especially the
south retail center for people that can walk there as well in a safe way.
Just a few images of 3D views of the development here.
This is the car wash that's going up right now.
This is Einstein Bagels, should be starting soon.
This clinic is now almost done.
Looks like it's by a separate developer, we didn't get that in the rendering here.
95 units, this front view is kind of the Teasley entrance view.
Just walk around the site here, this is the southwest, looking from Teasley, again you
see that many of these trees are existing trees.
It's a hillside area, we're also adding trees to it as well.
This is that back area, the back entrance with exit out to the Sprouts commercial area.
There's a buffer fence along that wall as well, along that property line as well.
On the backside here from the southwest, again you can see that buffer wall, the trees, ornamental
and canopy trees as well as hedges.
This is from the northwest, and this is a floodplain area as was mentioned.
We're limited in what we can do in there, but we can do a gravel walking trail around
there, adding more trees along there, keeping the existing fence in place as well.
Just some views of the building itself, and to note again the grade change with building
kind of into the hill that's there as you go around the building, as you drive around
the building, it goes down about a half story.
The building was designed to break up the massing as was mentioned in the code, use
of quality materials, 40% masonry per the code.
This is a market rate building, we're not seeking any subsidies on it.
These will be nice quality units for professionals, working class, not non-subsidized.
Just some other views of the front, the patio area.
One of the many we were discussing was the possibility of adding a playground.
We're open to that idea if that's the desire of the commission here to add a playground
in that area.
Some of the trees and park-like grassy areas, this is the back, southeast side, the back
garage door coming in.
Am I running out of time here?
Is that the bell?
Let me just show you, just give me like 30 seconds more here.
This is a view, if that's okay?
Yeah.
Okay.
Please.
This is from that pond area where we're adding the buffering and just kind of the view that
you'd see from the lake.
This was just a quick Google image of ... I Googled this apartments, this might not be
all of them, but just to note, along Teasley, it's about a mile north to this Hunter's Creek,
not quite a mile to the Hickory Creek Ranch apartments.
We think this is located in a good spot for multi-family use.
I guess Sean addressed a lot of the questions at the work session.
I don't know if there was any that he didn't hit on.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
I also have my civil engineers here with Weir Associates to answer any technical questions
you might have.
Thank you again.
Thank you for your consideration.
I'll stand for any questions.
Thank you very much.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
I didn't catch your last name, I'm sorry.
Carlson.
Carlson, Mr. Carlson.
Would you or the applicant be amenable to putting maybe a stop sign there at the entrance
to the commercial area?
That ingress there, you see where your little sign says to retail area, it's retail center.
Would you guys be amenable to putting a stop sign there, a four-way stop sign?
We wouldn't have a problem with that at all.
I'll talk to, I'll ask Sean that question here in a minute.
To your point about the apartments in that area, there are, I believe, at least two other
complexes that are in development over there, so I can totally get that neighborhood's concern
about number of apartments, that kind of thing, because there are two other along Teasley
that are developing there that might be just important to know.
Development looks good.
I think just with the combination of all the commercial uses in front of the apartment
complex and then the apartment and the occupancy of the apartments there, it just, it seems
like a safety hazard.
I don't see people jumping behind sprouts to get down to Hickory.
I'm just going to see that when we're in a car as we just do, what is the path of least
resistance, and so creating some sort of resistance to protect patrons to and from sprouts.
I mean, there's literally a Kroger here in town called Murder Kroger for the purpose
of people drive through that parking lot to get to all the other businesses instead of
getting onto a very busy highway of university.
They jump through the parking lot of Kroger and it's dangerous, and so I think your development's
great.
I think it looks awesome.
Just public safety is a big part for me on this project, so anything you'd say to that.
I guess site design is where we'd get into further details on exactly how those crossings
work with pedestrians and adding stop signs and things like that where we're open to whatever
makes the most sense.
Well, this being an SUP, you would definitely probably include that as a condition is to
put a stop sign there, but I think that'd be a discussion for us as a commission to
have here later.
But thank you.
Appreciate it.
Any other questions at this time for Mr. Carlson?
I do not see any, but we may call on you later.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith, I did get an answer on your Teasley Lane completion.
So between Geyer and Lillian Miller, the expected completion is October/November this year.
Okay.
So, I mean, I wouldn't put any money on that, but ...
Even if it's October/November of next year, I don't think that this project was approved
to be up by then, but okay, got it.
Thank you.
There's a little light at the end of the tunnel, maybe.
We've got several cards to speak, so we'll get started with that.
The first card I have is Frankie Nichols.
If you will state your name and address, then your time will begin.
Frankie Nichols.
So my concern is that we have a lot of people walking around a pond.
I live in that neighborhood.
We take pride in the neighborhood.
There's just all kinds of safety issues.
Kids, people coming on our side, and a fence is not going to keep people out.
Just like this cute little fence that's right here, on that buffer right there.
There's this fence, you see where it ends, all you have to do is go around it, and they
own our pond.
We already have people that come all around Denton to fish.
I don't mind to fish them, but they leave trash, they leave dead fish on the ... Nobody
respects our area, because it's not theirs.
So my concern is, it's just going to be a lot more people.
That's just going to add to the drainage issue, it's going to add to trash issue, population
around our pond, because we pay for the pond to get clean, the grass to get cut, sidewalk,
all that stuff, and it's just like, are they going to help us out?
We pay for that HOA, so it's just, to me, it's not fair, because they could just mosey
on over there.
Plus, our infrastructure sucks already, as it is with our sewer.
It totally does, and just to see more houses just pop up in the apartment complexes, to
me, it's not good.
Why can't we put a park there, instead of more houses?
I've lived here 14, 13 years, and it's crazy, population has went up like crazy, but to
me, I don't approve of this, because it looks cute, I like it, but their selling point on
this farm right there, by the veg buffer, by the pond, they're going to make money off
of that.
We ain't going to see that money, but they're going to be like, "Pom, dude."
They're not going to ... We ain't going to get money off that.
The first and second, third floor, they got trees, but the high level, they got the pond,
dude.
At the end of the day, to me, I don't approve of it, and this boils down to just money and
greed on other people's part, with bringing something like this in here.
I guarantee you, these people will just turn a burner, build it, and see you.
Right now, there's a lot of whole trees left.
I look every day, they're cutting trees down, knocking trees down.
There's nothing left.
They're gone.
- Thank you, Mr. Nichols.
Next card I have is Nina Nichols.
Hello.
- Hi.
I can't find my phone.
I sent you an email, and you responded.
I appreciate it.
I was going to just read my email.
I'm Nina Nichols.
I live at 2313 Fairmount Park Drive, which is directly across from the pond, basically
across from where they're showing the exiting fence.
We will have a nice view, being sarcastic of the apartment complex.
I have several issues with the apartments, talking about the traffic issue.
If they're using the pharmacy, or anybody trying to take a left-hand turn out of here,
we have a lot of traffic problems with that.
There's no lights right here coming out of any of these places.
They have to go further down to Hickory Creek.
I hear a lot of squealing tires from the pharmacy.
Our HOA does maintain the pond.
We have the pool right there that will be in view, and our park that our HOA has paid
for.
The concern is having people come over from the apartments to use our facilities and our
amenities that our HOA, that we're paying for.
Our HOA fees, luckily, we built the house, so we've been there for a while.
They haven't had to go up, but if we're having more damage being done to the pool, because
we have had a little bit of a problem with that this summer, with neighbors coming from
across the street, and for our fees could go up.
We try to maintain people at the pool, attendees, to make sure that only residents are coming
into the pool, but they're only on the weekend, because we can't.
There's not enough funds to pay to have somebody there all the time.
I think the other issue, of course, like I said, is the view.
I mean, a 53-foot building in the area, I'm trying to think of something else that's taller
around us.
It will be the tallest building that I can think of within the next, I don't know how
many blocks.
Then, talking about 95 units, I mean, I would say an additional 200 cars coming out of there
on a Teasley Lane that's with no traffic lights is going to be a problem.
Also, this exiting fence, I have an issue with, too.
Because it's a flood plain, I have been told they can't put up permanent fencing between
us and the pond, which will not keep people out.
Our pond is a sidewalk all the way around, so we have a lot of people that walk it for
exercise, walk the dog, everything else.
Thank you.
I know my bell rang.
Nana, thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading my email.
You're welcome.
Next card I have is Erin Maxwell.
Hi.
If you'll state your name and address, your time will begin.
Hi.
My name is Dr. Erin Maxwell.
I live on Belmont Park Drive.
My biggest concern with this development is safety, so contrary to what Mr. Sean said
about the rise in crime, there actually is some statistics to back that up.
I read a study, it was done in Little Rock, if there's a multi-development type place
going in within 1,000 feet, there is an increase in personal crime ... What did they call it?
They called it property crime as well as violent crime.
As a mother, I'm extremely concerned about the safety of my children.
There's a park there.
There's no park in this development.
People are going to walk over and infiltrate.
They're going to use our facilities that we're paying for.
I'm concerned about my HOA fees going up so that these people can make some money.
That's not fair.
Also worried about the property value going down.
As a homeowner, that's not anything that anybody wants.
You pay for your home.
It's important to you.
Those are my biggest concerns, safety and ... Yeah, mostly safety and crime.
I think that's a huge problem that we need to pay more attention to.
That's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Thank you, Erin.
Next card I have is Stephanie Neuhardt.
Hello.
Good evening.
Thank you again for taking my call this afternoon.
I will probably have to have the buzzer called on me because I am passionate about this project.
As of the time that I printed this afternoon, I have obtained 232 signatures against this.
Contrary to what the report said on notifications that went out, if you actually look at the
notification bullet, and my house is right there on the top left corner, it actually
only hit a couple of residential areas, it went to commercial properties.
There's about six to eight houses that are residential that it actually hit.
Our community had no idea.
I obtained these signatures in less than 48 hours.
This is for our community.
This is for Wheeler Ridge, and this is for Forest Meadow.
Part of the information that was stated was that this property was going to be complementary
to the surrounding areas.
Ninety-five units on a four-story building is egregious.
It is not complementary.
There is nothing around it for miles.
It's going from a commercial area to a low residential area.
Ninety-five units is not low residential at all.
It's not a segue.
It is not a bridge to the commercial buildings next to it.
I want to note that Casey Holdings, who is building this development, they're located
in Fargo, North Dakota, they have no intentions of improving Denton.
We love Denton, and the money that is being made from this is not going back into our
community.
It's going back into theirs.
Things that are going to be affected are our HOA dues and our amenities.
He stated a playground earlier today, and that was only because I had a call with him
last week and mentioned that they are offering no amenities to 95 units.
They're going to be utilizing our parks.
That's a liability to us.
It is for residents only.
Their only offering was to put it more postage that it's private residents.
That's not going to keep anybody out.
I'm going to tell you that if I were living in that apartment unit, I would walk over.
The walking trails that they posted on this are a joke.
I couldn't even fit my house inside their walking trail.
When right next door is our beautiful walking trails in our ponds, they're going to utilize
it.
We shouldn't have to call and utilize our resources and our police department in order
to facilitate keeping them away from us and the crimes that are going to be committed,
because contrary to what they stated, they only looked at trespassing.
They didn't actually look at true crime data.
I talked to a police officer today who is going to pull me those numbers, because most
of their calls do come from apartment units.
It is going to go up especially with zero barrier between us, including those barriers.
They are doing sound and visual barriers on three of their sides, but none of them affect
us.
We will have zero barrier between them, no buffer.
We're going to be able to see them, we're going to be able to hear them, they're going
to be able to access us.
Because of where my property is located, half of that community is going to be able to see
in my children's backyard.
That's not okay.
I can't have a privacy fence.
They're going to be able to walk up to my children and have conversations with them
while they're playing in their backyard.
Those are things that are not okay.
I didn't get buzzed, but we're not okay with this.
If I had more time, I could get more signatures.
The community does not want this.
They do not think that it's complimentary.
>> Thank you, Stephanie.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> The next card I have is Stephanie Ortega.
>> Hello, I'm Stephanie Ortega.
I live at 2205 Fairmount Park Drive, which is facing this.
My husband and I paid a premium for our lot to have the pond view, which is now going
to be looking in the balconies of whomever is living in this building.
To piggyback off of what the other Stephanie said, next door, I'm on next door with all
of our other neighbors, many, many, many crime calls from the new apartments that's down
the road near Geyer.
It's going to bring crime, and there needs to be -- there's a barbed wire fence there.
That is not a barrier.
And to piggyback again, they'll all come, use our amenities, our HOA fees will go up,
our property values will go down, and I'm paying a lot of tax to the city.
So I am opposed to this for all the reasons that everyone here is.
And I did not get a mailer.
I can see this.
I can walk less than a half a mile to this, and I didn't get a postcard.
Nobody asked me.
I found out about this yesterday.
Because Stephanie posted it with her petition, which I signed.
So thank you.
>> Thank you, Stephanie.
Next card I have is Bob Ashley.
>> Hi, Mr. Ashley.
>> Hi.
Good afternoon.
I just had some eye surgery.
My name is Robert Ashley, and I'm at 2309 Fairmont Park Drive.
I too live right across the pond from this development that I'm very much against for
various reasons.
Number one, I believe I heard out of the architect's mind that they shoehorned this apartment complex
into that four-acre lot.
And that alone has to tell you right off the bat what kind of planning was put into it.
The architecture concepts that's up there doesn't show you what that lot actually looks
at.
On the back of the almost completed car wash that's there, there's 20-foot, say 15-foot
cement walls that go straight up to the trees that are above that facility.
That hilltop is actually taller than the car wash that's presently there.
What this view shows you is nice plateaus.
It's not the way it is.
From our side of the pond, a 53-foot tall building is something that just sticks out
egregiously.
I mean, it's just something you can't miss it.
When we moved into this facility, there was a beautiful hillside that was there.
I know we have to count on progress.
That's all been literally ripped down.
All the animals have been left to run other places and live.
Now we have an Einstein Bagels, which I like very much, next to the community pharmacy
that I do occasionally use, in a car wash that I probably never use.
In that car wash actually is the prime view that these apartment people are going to see.
It's wrapped around the back end of a car wash.
That's what they get to see from the amenities of picnic tables and charcoal lots.
Those are the amenities that they talk about there.
If you look at the architect concept of their walking trails, the one walking trail that's
on the north end could fit inside of this room.
It's there.
It also shows you a pond that's there.
It looks like a swimming pool.
It's a pond.
What that is is a silt runoff from the parking lot.
Whenever you put this many facilities into a field like this, you just load it up with
cement.
That water has to run someplace.
We happen to have this nice silt pond that the city said, in order for the subdivision
to be built, you have to build this silt pond that keeps the runoff.
From the neighboring areas, it helps to stop the floodplain.
This floodplain is a 100-year floodplain, which I just say four or five times a year it floods.
Four or five times a year, whenever we have a two-inch rain like we just recently had,
that pond floods.
Now we have the runoff coming from Teasley.
We have the runoff coming from Community Pharmacy.
We've got the runoff coming from the car wash.
Now we've got the runoff coming from 177 parking spaces of nothing but cement.
Where's this water going?
It's not soaking in the ground.
It's not going to be held by this little bitty pond that they show here, the silt pond.
If you look at this silt pond, drive by there and look at it, they've got a nice dam area
in it with an exhaust pipe for the overflow.
That overflow dead ends right in back of the silt pond, which is dead-ended in the field.
The only thing that stops all those papers and that mud and that silt from running into
our pond that we pay for maintenance is a barbed wire fence.
That's the only thing that's there that they tell me now that we cannot have.
I'm one of the HOA board members.
One of the considerations we had was, "Well, maybe we can build an eight-foot chain link
fence there to stop the people from coming onto our property."
Well, we can't do that because of the 100-year flood plate says that you cannot add any new
fencing into that area.
I know my time is up, but I am so opposed to this, safety reasons.
Hopefully you guys go to Sprout's parking lot once in a while.
This facility hasn't even started being built.
You go to the dog supermarket there, park in their parking lot.
When you want to back out, see how long it takes you to back your car into the lane because
of all the traffic that's existing there right now between the Wendy's and the people going
into Sprout's.
That parking lot is full, and we're going to add another couple hundred people in there
and say it's safe.
The last thing I do want to say, which I find really kind of appalling for P&Z, is that
if you look at the overall site map that you have here, right by Stephanie's house and
at the end of our subdivision are two gas wells.
These two gas wells, you can't build a housing within 500 feet of gas well.
Well, it just happens that this apartment building is approximately 500 feet of gas
well.
That makes it better.
I'm going to have to ask you to end, Mr. Ashley, because your time is up and I've got other
cards.
Okay.
It's dangerous now, so what we don't want to do, is add another 95 units right in the
danger zone.
Thank you.
[applause]
Next card I have is Maria Piatto.
Hello, if you'll state your name and address, your time will begin.
Yes.
My name is Maria Piatto, and I live at 2201 Fairmount, right in front of the construction
site, so I'm going to face this monstrous building.
They were saying I'm concerned about these things, so I'm concerned about the drainage.
Right now, the pond does flood, and we're adding 95 units, and if you have a family
of four, that's 380 people.
The carwash drainage would also drain to the pond, since that's a floodplain, and I live
in front of the pond, so I'm concerned about the flooding.
Buffering, I'm also concerned about buffering, so I took a picture of the little fence that
we have that separates the construction site and us, and nothing separates their building
from ours, so they're going to walk across and use our amenities, since they don't have
any amenities, and they said that they wanted to add a trail and maybe a playground, but
it's not set in stone that they will do that, since they have our amenities across that
little barbed wire fence, and then they were talking about preferred growth concept, but
they forgot to add that they're going to increase crime.
There's going to be a lot more people, apartments, across our single family home, and I was listening
to the people that presented previously.
They had four acres, and they were applying for four single home dwellings, but this is
a four acre lot that has 95 units, and it's going to be crammed in such a small area,
and I don't understand how that area was approved, or this specific use permit is going to be
approved for an area that's surrounded by commercial zones, so I'm not sure how that
worked.
And then another thing is their further goal is to increase the walking distance to the
commercial things, but they didn't say that they're going to also increase the walking
distance to our amenities, and then, let's see what else, oh another thing, about the
underground parking lot, that is a red flag that they're trying to make a building work
in such a small area.
They had to go and dig underground in order to make parking spots available in such a
small area, so I'm concerned that they're trying to build something so massively big,
or so massive, in such a small area in front of a community that has an HOA and that has
a beautiful view towards Teasley Lane.
I've lived there 15 years, and Teasley has always had a traffic issue, so 380 more people
is going to have more, I mean it's going to bring us more traffic, and I'm really concerned
about that also, so yeah, that's all.
Thank you, Maria.
Next card I have is Philip Yates.
Good evening.
I'm not going to bore you a lot because you've heard what my neighbors had to say, but I was
a 4th house in the subdivision in Lexington Park, 2004, and I kind of want to talk to
the whole zoning.
I know you guys haven't been on this board forever, but y'all are ruined and bitten.
Y'all are destroying our city for money.
This guy, he don't care about anything.
He wants money.
You go to Art Krueger, you have to wait in line to check out, or my favorite Mexican
food restaurant, Matata, used to be fun to go out to eat, now you have to wait in line.
Our school is overcrowded.
My son was in the first graduating class at Geier, and it was a beautiful school, and
then they had to add, I mean, how much, a million, two, ten million to add on to it?
Our elementaries are full, our junior houses are full.
I have, unfortunately, had two medical emergencies the past month, didn't die, so it's okay,
but one, I had to go to Medical City, took me six hours, and I was putting a bed in the
hall.
The next time, I went to Presby.
I wasn't in the hall, but I sat in the waiting room with the homeless people that were coming
in from the rain, which was kind of entertaining, but they told me both places do not have the
facilities or the staff to handle the growth this board has allowed to happen.
We're full.
We're done.
We don't have hospitals.
We don't have schools.
We don't have grocery stores.
Both Walmarts, go to Walmart, either one of them, and you can't find a parking spot.
You people need to understand, we work our asses off to move out to this area to have
a good quality life, and because you don't want to rubber stamp every developer that
comes out here and let him build whatever he wants, whether it's apartments or houses,
you only want to think about the people, and the people are Denton, not him, not all his
money, it's us, so when you all vote, not just on this project, but all of them, think
about what you all are doing to the people of Denton.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yates.
Before I call the next speaker, what I would like to say is that I do not believe that
this commission is up here to destroy Denton.
We live here, too.
We are up here volunteering our time to make thoughtful and the best decisions that we
can to make Denton better.
The next card I have is Monica Lopez.
My name is Monica Lopez, I live at 1916 Belmont Park Drive.
I actually recently moved to the division, Lexington Park.
I lived actually behind the Kroger on University, so to add on, I understand that this was a
location that I wanted to reside in probably for the rest of my life and raise my two little
girls in it.
We struggle to even get to where we are today, so the fact that we were willing to sacrifice
in order to pay these HOA dues to ensure that our children were able to sit out or play
outside or actually have that neighbor interaction that lacks over there where we had originally
stayed at was one of the benefits and one of the sacrifices we were willing to make.
I know everybody has touched on safety, but I do want to point out that considering the
fact that a safety analysis or a risk assessment, hazard identification should have been made,
as that with the promotion of mobility, walkability that I keep on hearing about, especially from
the 2040 plan, we have also have to include the fact that these kids are going to be walking
to Guyer High, they are going to be less than that bus ride, so imagine them in an industrial
area where people are already racing around in the morning trying to get their bagels
or their Starbucks coffee, and you have kids cutting through every area and every avenue
in order to make it to school on time.
One of the other items that they brought up was a park, the park that would be, I believe
over in Willow Ridge area, that's again crossing four lanes of traffic to get over there once
Teasley is finally completed, but what they felt to mention was that Wigley Park is right
behind our area.
In order to get to Wigley Park, you are going to cut through, especially through the pond
area but also through the neighborhood in order to get to that location, because yes
we have trails that kind of lead to that area.
With that being said, you have the increase of animals coming through, nobody wants to
clean up, I see it all the time on next door posts about cleaning up their dog's mess,
but that is in addition to also an increase of the different animals that they are going
to be around, because they don't have the same amenities as we do, we truly do pay and
I feel like without any segregation and the fact that we do have those amenities that
people are already noticing and coming through, it's only going to increase the activity regardless.
So either they are going to be walking through our area to cut through for the schools because
we do have elementaries behind, they also in addition less than a mile or roughly a
mile, I know it's 1.3 from our location, but Hunters Creek is that apartment complex, I'm
not sure if their analysis included that from their traffic, but you have to think that
we have one on that corner and then also Guyer High, so just to include that in the risks.
Thank you Ms. Lopez.
The next card I have is Archie Krum.
Good evening, thanks for hearing us tonight.
My name is Archie Krum, I live at 2100 Fairmount Park Drive.
I moved to that neighborhood in 2005 and moved into my house on Creekdale phase one, I was
one of very few homes that was built there and moved in right away much like Mr. Ashley.
I have since moved into the back half, phase three of that neighborhood in 2013, so I live
on Fairmount Park Drive.
I'm going to see this monstrosity from my house and from my yard.
Big concern, that is going to cost us money because of what they've all said tonight here.
Our HOA dues are going to go up due to the runoff, due to the trash, due to these people
living in here doing what they do, they're going to come onto our property.
The pond is our property, our walkways is our property, we pay to maintain that, so
that now affects my family, my budget, the money in bank, all that stuff, so it affects
us all financially.
Next, I work for a local fire and EMS city, not the city of Denton, but I work for another
city.
When they tell you that this is not going to affect crime or emergency medical services,
they're wrong.
I see it, I live it and I work for it.
I run more calls in apartment complexes than I do in single family residential areas.
It's just a fact and the fact of that is because it's a high density area now, instead of being
spread out along a specific amount of space, they're now packed into this tiny area.
So yes, crime is going to go up, EMS calls are going to go up in that area.
Fire Station 6 just down the road is already taxed.
They run and they run and they run.
I can't tell you how many times a week we see wrecks right out on Teasley, especially
with all the construction.
It's going to affect us all.
Too many people in a very small area.
To touch on another subject, the schools.
We've been here, like I said, I've been here since 2005.
The elementary schools are already extremely, extremely full.
You bring in another 95 units, that's another potential 95 families with children.
Now you're talking about student to teacher ratios in excess of what's acceptable.
25, 30 students in a classroom for one teacher, it's not acceptable.
We already try to teach our kids the right things and now the students and the teachers
can't interact with one another.
Again, just to reiterate, crime, it affects us all financially regardless of what they
might say.
This is directly going to affect our families.
They're just trying to make a buck and cram as many people in a room as they can.
If you've ever been on four acres, it's nice when you're walking by yourself for five or
six or ten people, but when you put two or three hundred in it, four acres is not a lot
of room.
So thank you.
>> Thank you, Mr. Green.
>> Next card I have is Bill Mills.
>> Hello.
Bill Mills.
I live at 2000 Belmont Park Drive.
I'm the president of the Lexington Park HOA.
My biggest concern along with the community is the increased traffic, trash, crime, vandalism
that's going to come with this and we haven't raised our dues in probably 15 years or better
and I don't want to be the one to have to do it, but with that high density and that
location and us not being able to put any kind of barricade up between us and them,
like I said, that fence that's there was when there was a ranch there, a Lone Star horse
ranch and it's a bar bar fence and that's all that's been there ever since.
So I don't know how freezing it is.
So that's my concern at this point, just what you've heard from everybody else and from
the neighborhood and also the only cards that went out were for the people within 500 feet,
which are within 500 feet is a gas well there.
So and you notice that apartment, they curved it, I think, to keep the living quarters out
of the 500 foot range.
But all the heck we went through with the city council over that a couple of years ago
is a nightmare.
So at any rate, that's what I have to say.
Thank you.
Thank you as well.
Okay, I have other cards not wishing to speak, but when I read your name, if you would like
to just holler and you can come on up.
I have a card filled out by Melissa Scott in opposition, not wishing to speak.
I've got a card from Mike Scott, same in opposition, but not wishing to speak this evening.
Card from William Hamilton in opposition, would you like to speak?
I've got a card from Suzanne Beachill in opposition.
My name is Suzanne Beachill.
I live at 2101 Prescott Downs.
So I don't live as near as many of these people do, but we live there.
I have seven children.
They range in age from seven to 27.
Not all of them live with me anymore, but my concern with all of this is safety.
My kids play in this neighborhood.
They're all around.
They have so much fun in this neighborhood.
That's one of the reasons that we moved here and we haven't lived here very long, just
four and a half years.
I send my 13 year old with a phone to take our dog all around that park.
I won't be able to do that anymore.
It won't be safe and it's not okay that they can't do that.
That's got to be a reality to everybody.
I don't mind apartments.
I want there to be apartments.
I want people to have affordable housing.
I don't think these apartments are going to be affordable and I don't think that the number
of people there is going to be a benefit to our community at all.
Mr. Scott, I'm going to circle back around, because I believe you did want to come down
and come on down.
My name is Mike Scott.
I live at 2200 Prescott Downs Drive, very quickly.
Things change.
I understand that.
Money needs to be made.
I understand that.
Worth it.
The world goes on.
The bottom line is, though, that area is a suburban area.
It has been that from the beginning.
You're about to add, I don't know what, 90 something homes for families, all within a
small area, real close to my home, only because if I were the builder, I can squeeze more
people in there.
I can make more money off of it.
It's in a smaller area.
Now, I didn't know that this was happening until yesterday.
Nobody ever notified me.
I never had a chance to think about it.
What I would like to know are several things.
Why are we going to move this apartment complex in?
Why are we going to have so many people moving in when this area has no industry next to
it, no industry close?
We're going to double up on traffic on street that is already choked.
We're going to add a choke point getting in and out from Teasley that is on the backside
of a hill.
People aren't even going to be able to see each other until they hit each other.
There's no industry.
The schools are full.
Guyar High School is 6A school.
The other, the elementaries that are close by, they're full.
There is only one middle school within a reasonable distance.
Why?
Why do we need, I mean there's no industry.
There's no job.
There's nothing there.
I'm just curious.
On the other hand, I understand things change.
I understand if I owned that property and I had the money, I would want to make more
money off of it also.
But the downside is we are very emotional about the way we feel about this.
We live there.
It's our neighborhood.
We bought into it, most of us did, when it was still growing, still being built.
We've been there for a long time.
The area around us is suburban.
We live there for a reason.
We like it that way and that area is growing in single-dwelling, I'm sorry, single-family
dwellings every day, but now you want to step out of that.
I just can see no reason for it.
I don't know about everyone else.
I wish I'd had a chance to plan on what I really wanted to say.
Like I say, nobody notified me this was happening.
It would have been nice to know it.
Could we have more time, possibly, to look into this?
I'd like to research it some.
I'd like to see some data on it.
I'd like to know why.
Would it be possible?
Rather than have a couple hours to think about it, would it be possible to get more time?
Thank you.
Thank you for speaking.
Next card I've got is Stephanie Derricks in opposition.
I know three Stephanies, I want to thank them more at this moment.
There's another one.
So like everybody else, I have the same issues.
That they have.
My biggest concern, though, is like we just heard noted notification.
And when he presented his presentation, he skipped over that very quickly.
I didn't have time to read what was on the screen.
So I don't know how many people are notified.
I don't know what the range was of people that were notified.
I know that I wasn't notified.
Sorry, Stephanie Derrick, 2105 Fairmont Park.
Next issue is the traffic, the fact that it looks like a prison.
I mean, nobody's even mentioned how ugly it is.
And we're going to have to look at it.
I walk 4 a.m. every morning around that pond that everybody keeps talking about.
And how safe is it going to be for me to continue to walk at 4 a.m. in the morning?
Right now I don't have an issue with any of that.
I'm also concerned about our infrastructure.
Can we handle it?
What about the flood zone that we currently live in?
And they're going to be building underground.
So that's displacing dirt and everything else that is currently soaking up that water.
So where does that leave our floodplain?
When we're digging underground, removing dirt to build a car garage.
Kids walking to school.
We already have an issue with that, with kids walking to school and it being dangerous.
That's the reason the busing system right now is busing kids from our neighborhood,
from the neighborhood across the street and next door to us.
But that's not going to last.
I guess November they said that the road was going to be done.
Well, let's see if that happens.
But when that happens, there will be no more busing.
So that means, roughly what did we say, 95 units, how many people with all those kids,
now they're going to be walking.
Some of them will ride, which just increases the traffic in the area.
So anyway, like I said, probably value.
It's the same thing you've already heard from all of us.
But I don't think there's a person in here that wants this to happen other than possibly
y'all and the people who are building it.
I have nothing against the progress.
Unlike a lot of these guys, I've only lived in the area three years.
But we love it and we chose it because of the area that it is and we want to continue
to have it that way.
You're going to walk and get more signatures, I'll be happy to help you.
The next card I have is Nancy Davis in opposition.
Ms. Davis, did you want to speak?
Okay.
Next card I have is Christina Smith in opposition.
Did you want to come down and speak?
Okay.
The next card I have is Lita Covert.
Okay.
She is opposed.
Penny Ashley in opposition.
If you'll come to the podium, we can't engage from the audience.
If you will state your name and address, you can speak.
My name is Penny Ashley at 2309 Fairmount Park Drive.
I have a question regarding these children who would be in that apartment complex about
a bus.
How are you going to manage a bus picking up those kids?
They're going to have to walk out probably closer to Teasley Lane to be picked up.
Can you address that, please?
Once our speakers are done, I'm making some notes and I'll have staff answer some questions.
I do not have any more cards, but the public hearing is open.
If there is anyone wishing to speak who did not fill out a card, you may do so.
While you think on that, I know we have a caller who's been waiting and wanting to speak
on this item, so I am going to ask staff to bring that caller in, please.
Hello, good evening, everybody.
My name is Jason Jolavet.
Can you hear me okay?
We can.
Thank you for your patience.
If you'll give us your name and address, your time will begin.
Absolutely.
My name is Jason Jolavet and I live at 2008 Prescott Downs Drive.
About 1100 feet from this behemoth, so I won't see it.
I didn't get a card, but I'm very, very concerned about this project.
You know, I'm not really a community type person.
You know, I didn't get involved.
I got involved because it didn't seem like the outreach for this was there.
There were people on the HOA board that didn't even know about this and certainly didn't
know about this meeting tonight, and so thank you to Stephanie, both Stephanie's, everybody.
I really appreciate everybody's passion and I want to echo everything that I heard tonight.
You know, I heard the words complementary and compatibility.
That's ridiculous.
I mean, this, I understand mixed use and we have a mixed use community already, but this
is like, you know, I heard the word shoehorn.
This is like trying to drive a square peg in a round hole and, you know, at the very
least, the density of 95 people taking up about the same, 95 homes taking up about the
same space as 10 to 15 homes is going to cause problems.
All sorts of them.
You heard about them, environmental, traffic, statistically, crime, our property values
will go down, our costs will go up.
I mean, it's basically going to destroy the ambience.
You know, I walk that path.
I go to that pool occasionally and it's, anyway, I just don't really even have the words.
This is not my wheelhouse, but I will say that I am vehemently opposed to it, especially
at the density that it is.
So that's about all I got.
Like I said, I really appreciate that everybody showed up and expressed their passionate opposition
to this, because that's what mine is.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for calling in tonight.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak?
Okay.
Well, one at a time.
If you have already spoken on the item, you cannot speak again.
So I will ask for those who have not spoken.
If you will come down and state your name and address, your time will begin and we'll
get a card from you later.
Hello.
My name is Trinidad Ortega.
I live on, geez, on Fairmont Park Drive, kind of catty corner from this.
I've got two things to say.
They talked about that there's already a fence barrier there.
It's a five strand barbed wire fence.
That's not a barrier.
And then the second thing that somebody commented and I caught also was when they talked about
that, the little radius where they notify people, if they go back to that picture and
see how many houses it actually touched, because they talked about that, the postcards got
sent out, and when I saw it, it's right on the edge of that pond in front of it.
You've got Teasley on the other side, and I think it might have caught a couple of houses
on the left, and then the businesses.
So those are two big things.
The fence that's the so-called barrier is just a five strand barbed wire, and then that
notification ring that they showed.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Anyone else wishing to speak, who has not, please come down, state your name and address.
Your time will begin.
Good day, board members.
My name is Bill Lundgren.
I live at 2301 Fairmount Park Drive.
As a matter of fact, I was the first house built on that part of the street.
I guess my issues is the density.
How tall did they say the building was?
50 feet?
53 feet?
That's the tallest building in several miles in any direction.
It will have a view, it'll be a knockout view, but unfortunately I'll be looking at it from
the ground, and that's just, it'll destroy my home's value, which is my piggy bank.
People are talking about the fence and the access to the pond.
That fence only runs up to where the pharmacy drive is at.
It's a non-barrier.
It's just not there.
I walk that pond, and I go around, and we have people that come in from Denton, all around
Denton to fish in there, which is not a real issue, but I have to pick up after them.
I can't imagine what it's going to be like with 95 more households there.
There's no amenities in that complex.
Ours is right there.
One walk around, right past the pharmacy, into the pond, to our playground, our picnic pavilion,
all that stuff, it's all right there.
It's just too many people in one spot.
Thank you.
I believe I saw someone else wishing to come down who has not spoken yet.
You'll state your name and address.
Your time will begin.
Hi.
Shocking.
I'm Stephanie Beckwith.
So another Stephanie.
I live at 4205 Aqueduct Drive.
One thing I wanted to, while we were hearing everybody speak, the city planning person
had brought up that the police don't have a problem with this and say that there's not
going to be an influx in crime.
A, they don't live here.
They don't live in that neighborhood.
So for them to say they don't have a problem, well, yeah, it's not their neighborhood.
But my husband has actually been a police officer with the Denton Police Department
for 20 plus years, and his first response was that it's going to increase in crime.
He said that apartment complex are going to, just in general, have more crime rate, and
especially ones that aren't gated and don't have, you know, gate around the entire structure.
Also, he said that the city, you know, he said that they didn't have any problems and
the police said that there wasn't a high crime rate, but, you know, Stephanie tried to reach
out to the police, a community response, whoever does the public relations with the community,
and wasn't even able to get a hold of somebody in the last two days since we have found out
to get crime rates or statistics to, you know, disprove maybe what he's saying, because it's
very generic.
And again, we are not opposed to apartments, and Stephanie didn't mention that she also
has ownership in a third, one-third ownership in units that this developer owns, and even
then as an owner of apartment complex would never do something like this and shoehorn
into an established community.
Another point I wanted to make is that the apartments I went up at Ryan Road and Teasley,
they were built after, pretty quickly after the neighborhood was built.
Ours says, our neighborhood has been there 15 years, and it's an established neighborhood
with pretty much everybody there has families and children, and everybody there takes great
pride in their home and maintains their yard.
I mean, I think we have one of the best looking neighborhoods, because, you know, go to, cut
through a lot of neighborhoods, we have the space, we have the acreage, we have the land,
I mean, it's a very aesthetically pleasing place to live, and I think that something
like this is going to change that.
Another point, the staff analysis shows that a small increase to the schools, that's just
a slight increase, but it fails to realize people are trying to get their kids into Geier
and are waiting for homes to open up, and so this also provides them access.
You know, and again, they want to go to Geier, they want the sports, they want their children
to go there, they know it's a good school district, they know it's a good school for
sports and everything, so this is just going to open that up, and people are just going
to rush in here just trying to get into the Geier school district.
So, that's all I had to say at this point in time.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone wishing to speak who has not done so?
Okay, seeing none, I will close the public hearing, and we will open up the floor for
discussion prior to doing that.
Sean, if I could bring you up for a moment.
We've had a lot of talk about notification.
If you will bring that up, I just want to address that in the sense that staff has done
nothing wrong with the notification effort.
This is something we've worked on, and we have absolutely improved in the city, in my
opinion, in the years I have been on P&Z.
There's no perfect way to notify everyone.
This is the way everyone is notified.
I will let Sean explain how that radius is drawn, but there is no way, and we have asked
multiple times, if there is any better way that we could reach out to the neighbors other
than larger signs, which we have improved over time.
We now have the ability to opt in on our website.
Unfortunately, it does take effort to know what's going on, and we do the best that we
can, and staff does a tremendously great job of it.
I will let Sean take it from here as to how that is drawn and how it's done and what's
expected and what we do.
Thank you.
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you.
Our GIS staff does take the legally marked meets and bounds for the property and then
measure out from that to the 200-foot and 500-foot distance.
We capture within that 200-foot distance all property owners, and within the 500-foot distance
then residents and rate payers.
Both of those lists, one is used to send out 500 feet of postcards, and at the 200-foot
distance, the registered mail letters.
Okay.
Very good.
Yes, and I will ... You know what?
We're not going to talk from the audience.
We can't have that done to have thoughtful discussion.
Thank you for the explanation, Sean.
Tina, as well, would like to add to that.
What I would like to add to Sean's remarks.
The 200-foot notification is a requirement from state law.
State law says that we have to notify all property owners based upon the latest approved
municipal tax roll who own property.
That's why we do the 200-foot notification.
The city of Denton goes above and beyond the minimum requirement provided for in state
law and does the 500-foot postcard notification.
We actually send that to current resident.
That way, it's duplicating the minimum requirement for the state law, but our community has made
that decision to be able to have that notification boundary go beyond that.
That's our local practice that we do here in Denton to try and make sure that, especially
for people who don't own their residence, let's say they rent, the purpose of the postcard
is to be able to get them notification as well because the letter is going to go to
whoever owns the property, again, based upon the latest municipal tax roll.
So if you recently bought your home within the neighborhood, let's say last month, you're
probably not showing up on the latest municipal tax rolls.
But that's why we do the duplication notification effort.
One is a requirement of state law, and then the second item is what the city has made
the commitment to its residents for providing that additional notification.
And Commissioner Ellis is correct.
We've recently rolled out an opt-in notification system where people can request to receive
notifications regarding projects occurring within a certain distance.
You get to specify the distance.
You can go to our City of Denton website, cityofdenton.com.
If you go to our land, I believe it's on our land development page, or you might find it
on our development services home page, there's a way that you can now opt in to receive those
notifications.
It's specific to development applications that have public hearings associated with them,
so specific use permit requests and zoning change requests.
Thank you, Tina.
Sean, I had one more question for you to answer that was asked, and that has to do with the
bus.
I know you did have a discussion with DISD, so if you would like to just elaborate on
that, if you can.
Thank you.
Unfortunately, bus routes are not something we can necessarily speak to because DISD does
redesign those routes on a regular basis in response to changes in development.
Okay.
My apologies.
I do appreciate that.
And sir, I see your hands up.
We don't do question and answer.
So we're going to continue our discussion.
Commissioner Smith, I believe you are first on the floor.
Thank you, Chair.
Sean, on the fencing, because that is in the flood plain, so there cannot be any permanent
fencing there whatsoever.
The applicant made it seem like there was a possibility for a fence to be put up there.
So new fencing is not permitted, existing fencing can be maintained.
It is possible to apply for a variance to replace an existing fence with something that
would be similar in its impact in the flood plain.
So obviously not a, say, a wood fence, a fence that would block, but a fence that would allow
flow through.
There is the potential for the city engineer to approve that variance.
Gotcha.
And that's, is that that barbwire fence, is that on applicant's property or is that on
the HOA's property?
That is on the applicant's property.
Okay.
Got it.
Thank you.
On the flood plain and the underground parking garage, it's been nagging at me and I didn't
bring it up in work session.
We don't have a whole lot of underground parking garages in Denton, and I don't know how deep
is underground parking garage because I wasn't going to go super in depth on it.
Was that a concern or a thought process with the fact that it is so close to a retention
pond and then the other private pond in the HOA, that being possibly having some flooding
issues?
Was there any thought or, or an in-look into that whenever the application was going through?
Yeah, definitely.
We had our engineers review this in relation to those issues, so there are actually, it's
not shown as clearly on these plans, but there are actually two underground detention areas
provided underneath the parking pavement in addition to the pond that's shown there in
order to address those potential additional drainage issues.
And simply put, at the civil engineering plan process, we would not allow this to go forward
until all drainage issues had been addressed according to our Denton development plan.
Gotcha.
On the access to the Sprouts commercial area parking lot, if it was a stipulation on the
SCP to add a stop sign there to be able to create safety for access to that parking lot,
what does the applicant have to do to go through and do that?
Would that, since the stop sign could technically be partially on their property and then on
the commercial properties land as well, what would that process look like?
So I believe the applicant could simply propose to provide it on their property, so it would
be entirely on their property and that would be something that they could provide, I believe,
without needing to do anything with the adjacent property.
Gotcha.
One thing I will bring up, and it's not really more anything to you other than to Tina, I
know we'll be bringing it up when we get to the matrix, an idea that I've had, this is
the first time I think in the five years I've been on P&Z where we've seen this, where if
we hit a neighborhood that has an HOA with notifications that we add in, sending a letter
directly to the HOA management company as well, I don't know if we do that now.
How about we save that for the matrix and not in this discussion?
Yeah, that's fine.
I just wanted to bring that up, but we'll talk about that in a second.
Mr. Anderson.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm good, Sean.
I don't need to.
First, I'd like to say thanks to each and every one of you all for coming out and speaking
about what you . . . expressing your views regarding this project, but first I'd like
to address Mr. Yates for a second.
Mr. Yates, thank you for coming out and speaking your mind as well, but I kind of take offense
to what you said.
You stated that the council . . . I take offense to what you said about the council.
As Chairwoman Ellis stated, this board is made up of non-paid volunteers that are actually
looking out for the residents of the city.
You have the opportunity to go to your council member and ask them if you'd like to volunteer
for this position as well.
I advise you to do that if you'd like to come up here and make sure stuff goes your way.
The other thing is, Denton is growing in this community, and this county is one of the fastest
growing counties in the nation.
We're doing our best as council members to make sure that the projects that come before
us meet the criteria that are set before us.
This is the first time I remember . . . the first time I remember what a census was was
in 1976 when I was a little kid.
I won't say my age, but anyway, in my memory, it serves me correctly this population of Denton
was approximately 40,000 to 50,000 people.
We've grown tremendously since, now we're over 120-something thousand people.
But I do agree that, I mean, there's a couple of us up here on this council that have been
born and raised here.
I was born and raised here as well as another person up here on the council.
So we do look out for the city.
That's the reason I got involved, to be on this council is to look out for the city.
So anyways, that just kind of set a little nerve when you said we're just trying to ruin
the city.
Well, I think you're incorrect, and I call it as I see it as well.
But anyways, regarding the apartments, I do agree with a lot of what you're saying.
There's no amenities for the residents of the apartment complex, pool, park, lake, or
anything.
There's only one major entrance, kind of one major exit.
We've had this project come in before us another time on another project.
Whenever you have just one major entrance and one major exit, I feel bad for the people
that are going to live there because if there's a catastrophe happens, they're stuck.
They're on an island.
And like the lady said a second ago, whose husband is a police officer here, the other
gentleman that's an EMT, fire paramedic, thank you for your service.
He sees it all the time.
So that's kind of one thing I don't like about this project as well.
And the other thing is the residents that I don't like that how the residents would
have to leave and go through a commercial property.
That just doesn't sit well either.
Even putting a stop sign there still doesn't alleviate traffic and it's going to be bad.
I mean, I've been through that parking lot many times as one of the gentlemen spoke.
I can't remember who it was.
But anyway, you said trying to back out of a parking spot.
It's rough.
I mean, I've been over there multiple times anyways.
And the other thing I really don't like is they're like, again, there's no amenities
for the children of that apartment complex.
They are going to and I don't care what y'all say, they are going to get on that path and
walk around.
They're going to go to that pond, they're going to go to the pool, because they don't
have anything.
They're going to sit there in their apartment, they're going to look out and see it.
They're going to want to do it.
So anyway, with that, I'll close out my time.
Thank you, Commissioner Anderson.
Commissioner McDade, I believe you're on.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would just like to thank everyone for coming out and voicing your concerns.
And let me be the first to say that I know how you feel because I've sat where you sat
right now.
Honestly, when they send out the notifications, if 70% of the notifications go to commercial
business, I think that's a disservice to the community.
I would love to see a modification to that.
That way it includes more homeowners.
I don't know what can be done about that with the city, but you'll have to go to the city
for that.
My biggest concern is the traffic.
Now they're saying that Teeley is going to be finished in November, so the buses are
no longer going to run, so the kids are going to have to walk to school.
But now you're adding another 216 cars into traffic.
That concerns me.
I have a big concern with that.
But I can say the city is growing, and I can say I know how you feel because when you send
it out to the commercial businesses, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but they could
care less.
It's the community who has to live with this.
So I appreciate everyone coming out and voicing your concern, but I can honestly say this
is something that I cannot get on board with.
Thank you.
Commissioner Cole.
Thank you, Chair.
You know, a lot of you all at night have asked the question of why, and to back up what Commissioner
McDade said, you know, I've been there where you are.
Most of us here have.
All our neighborhoods are changing.
I mean, I live in the west side of town, yet we're in a rural neighborhood.
Well, now we're surrounded by industrial floodlights.
You know, my old sunset's gone, you know?
And we sit up here and we give our time.
We're doing this because we love this town, and I wish there was a way where we could
just turn the spigot of growth off, but you can't.
You can't.
And you know, I don't know if I know much about Denton, but I've been here my whole
life since 1967, and my family settled here in the 1800s.
So that, sir, got me a little fired up because I've been here longer than you have.
We're not greedy.
We're not out for development.
We're trying to be right down the middle as best we can.
And we've made some hard votes.
I've been on the bad end of those in my neighborhood.
Almost everybody has.
You know, 2017 alone, 2,000 companies left the state of California and came to Texas.
That's just 2017.
We have to re-up our data for growth regularly, because, you know, it's out of date in four
months and a quarter.
You know, we have a housing issue here.
I mean, there was a time a few months ago where you couldn't buy a newly built home
in Denton.
It didn't exist.
I have -- I have issues with this project.
I do.
This is just a -- sometimes we call a problem piece of property, and we've got to determine
all of us the best use of that property.
One gentleman, you know, said a park.
I bet if I polled all of y'all, park would probably be the top choice, but something's
going to go there and it ain't going to be a park.
It's private property, you know.
But I just -- you know, I'm sorry I got riled up, but I felt like we were -- this commission
and our integrity was being attacked when we're just volunteering for our city.
That's Commissioner Cole.
I'll say a few words and then I'll get to -- we are going to have a motion.
Thank you all for coming out and speaking.
This is how this works.
That's why we hold public hearings.
Citizen involvement is imperative to share whether or not whatever the commission and
ultimately the City Council decides this is always important.
Stay involved and be communicative.
That's what it's all about.
We are up here doing the best job that we can, hearing you, hearing the applicants that
come before us, listening to our incredibly talented staff who go through each project
painstakingly as a group.
We have incredibly talented people who live here and work in our city and they're doing
a great job.
Whether or not you believe in the project, they have a job to do with these applicants.
We have a code to follow.
We have guidelines to follow and they bring before us and council their best analysis
of every project.
And it is up to us to assess it, hear it, study it, drive by it and make the best decision
we can which we are about to do shortly.
With that being said, typically a multifamily project is a good buffer between a neighborhood
and a commercial development.
However, with the site constraints that this one has, the hill that it's on, the flood
plain, the fact that the buffer can't be made between that and your neighborhood, there's
all kinds of site constraints here that certainly give me pause to what's before us.
When I make a vote, I do it individually and take it very seriously.
There's no rubber stamping going on in this city, sir.
That being said, Commissioner Smith, you have a motion to make.
Sure.
Thank you, Chair.
I'll say a few words and then I'll make my motion.
To my neighbors, which I am your neighbor, I live over in Forest Ridge, my shop at Teasley,
I eat at Meat Taza, I ate at Meat Taza when it was called Meat Taza, I eat at Alibaba,
you know, hey, I'm an OG, what's up.
The eat at Alibaba, heck, in high school, I swam in your pool.
I was with a resident, but it's all good, I swam in your pool, I've been there, so
I commiserate with you.
At the age of 26, I joined this commission, served it for five years, Margie might argue
if it was faithfully or not, but that's up to her, just kidding.
We do this, it's a thankless job.
We get paid in pizza, and we go home at 2 a.m., we've been here till 2 a.m., 2.30 before.
We get up, we go to work, we repeat.
So I'm going to echo what my fellow commissioners and the Chair have said.
We don't rubber stamp anything, folks.
We do our best to defend and uphold the city we love, and I'll heavily encourage you to
apply.
There is an application on the website, your city councilman would love to have you volunteer
for these positions and be up here.
You'll get paid in pizza.
It's melon mushroom, it's pretty good, so you guys can come check that out.
Now with that said, the intent, I think, of the applicant is honorable, and I greatly
appreciate it, and city staff has done an awesome job on this project, working through
its intricacies and its difficulties.
I've heard a lot of concerned neighbors tonight, and over the last five years, we've had these
types of discussions before, and they're hard to go through.
I think at the end of the day, our job as a commission is to be impartial and vote based
off of what the Denton Plan 2040 says, what Texas Local Government Code says, what our
development code, the Denton Development Code says, and vote for what we think is abiding
by that, and staff has given us a recommendation for approval tonight.
Now with all that said, this meets those standards.
It is at a level, the staff has given us that recommendation of approval, but with that
said, I will say that I do not agree.
I think that the safety issue with sprouts is going to be something that I cannot sleep
at night, accepting that I possibly had a hand in allowing a project to go through with
that being out there.
On top of that, I think is not fair, unlike other apartment complexes, and I think I have
probably seen and voted in approval or in favor of many multifamily projects across
the city, the two that are in process on Teasley included.
I think that those projects did not impede upon private citizens and their HOA paid amenities.
I think that is not fair to the neighbors, and there is no way that we can actually limit
from access to those areas now.
So with that said, I am going to make a motion to deny.
We have a motion on the floor for denial.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Yes, just a few words.
Thank you all for coming.
I have long been an advocate for taking community concern into consideration.
There is a reason why we have a Volunteer Citizen Commission, to approve permits of
this nature, and this is another opportunity for us to side with the neighborhood.
For that reason, I am moving to deny, and I am seconding.
We've got a first and a second on the floor for denial discussion.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
First of all, thank you for the good discussion, I think the questions and the presentations
really covered it all.
I don't think anybody has any confusion over what this is.
I think as we see more of these types of challenging parcels, we have to keep in mind not what
would we build there if nothing else existed yet, but we have to understand that staff
is working with these applicants to figure out what is the best possible thing that could
go there now.
Going forward, I think we have to be very careful that we don't hold people to a situation
that does not exist.
With that said, there's been a lot of emotions in this room tonight, so I don't know how
this vote's going to go, but I'm going to break the ice a little bit and say I'm just
going to give you an imagining of a alternative situation where these neighborhoods still
exist, where it's hopeful instead of hurtful.
Let's imagine that this was built, and five years after it's built, maybe Johnny, who's
walking his dog and jumps the fence and walks around the pond, meets Susie, who's in the
other neighborhood.
Maybe the HOA talks to the apartment manager and says, "Hey, you guys are coming over
here.
Why don't we ... We're about to experience an increase in HOA fees.
Why don't we do something together?
You can pay into this HOA, and then we'll let you use our amenities for real."
Obviously, those may not seem likely to the viewpoints that are in the room today.
I wish we could start thinking about people as people, as opposed to other people, and
I wish that we would understand that constraints exist, but they are independent of the good
work that people are doing to try to come up with the best given what's on the ground.
Thank you.
Thanks, Commissioner Pruitt.
We have a first and a second for denial.
I don't see anyone else wishing to speak, so we'll just say a couple more words before
we take a vote.
With my vote, I've always ... I'm never about going against somebody developing their land.
I think that's important.
Property rights are important, but I also have always been about neighborhood protection.
This land is suburban corridor.
There's a lot that could go here, and multi-family is not a ridiculous ask.
I think with the site constraints, however, the way the building is proposed, it's out
of scale with what we have around it.
You've got community pharmacy.
That's a great example of how that went in, but it fits right into the neighborhood.
It serves the neighborhood.
I'm all for multiple options for people to live.
We need apartment complexes.
No matter how much people want to complain that there's too many, we need them.
We wouldn't have developers wanting to build them if there wasn't a need and they could
fill them, because an empty apartment complex does nobody any good, so they are needed.
To Commissioner Pruitt's piggyback on that, don't look at people who live in an apartment
complex like they're all criminals.
I think that's unfair.
However, that being said, 53-foot building on this site, where it's located with its
constraints is not smart use of this property.
I think suggesting that someone go through this very busy retail parking lot as another
way to access out onto a road is irresponsible, honestly, for us as a city.
I'm in there shopping.
I'm at Sprouts at least twice a week.
I'm at the pet supermarket on the regular.
It's difficult even now to navigate that parking lot sometimes.
We're just adding to that and adding more commercial things, and we're going to add
more people and cars and whatnot.
Adding this many residences to that mix, to me, is just not a good use of this property.
I think it's an irresponsible choice.
Other scale, I think I could get on board with to where the building size fit in.
You're not adding quite as many people.
I might be able to get on board with that because, like I said, typically going from
a neighborhood to a commercial property with multi-family in between is a typical development.
That being said, thank you again for coming out and speaking out.
We do have a motion on the floor.
We will go ahead and take ... At this point in the discussion ... Okay, I don't want to
have a discussion from here.
If you want to come up to the podium, if you'd like to add ... If you'd like to give answer
to any discussion that was brought up, we can.
I will call for a vote shortly.
Okay, appreciate that.
Just to hit on some of the things that were brought up, stop sign, for sure.
That's not an issue.
Playground, if there's a condition to add a playground as part ... There's a lot of
green space in there.
It's concentrated so that there is a lot of space around the building, a lot of trees,
a lot of green space.
The fence that's there, again, there's some limitations there.
If we apply for a variance to upgrade that fence, we're very willing to do that, if that's
an option.
On those three points, we really don't have an issue.
Just to compare the multi-family that was just approved earlier tonight, that was also
a four-story, that was also in a residential neighborhood.
I don't believe it had an HOA there.
That was approved 7-0.
This is in a zoning that is compatible for multi-family, or is that one ... Was it an
R7?
Craig, I could be wrong on that.
We're actually in the right zoning.
We're not asking for any subsidies for our project.
This is a quality.
Quality projects will have good neighbors.
I think it's an improvement for the site.
The site can't just remain nothing there, so something will go there.
We think this is a good use.
It just sounds like some of the things that were brought up were just for apartments in
general.
If Denton is okay with apartments, this is as good of a site as any, especially as compared
to the one that was just approved earlier this evening.
Appreciate your consideration on those points.
If you want to ask me any questions, feel free.
I don't see any questions.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
I guess just to comment real quick, and then we're going to vote.
It's why we hear everything individually, because every site is unique, and every situation
is unique.
Just because an apartment complex is approved somewhere and maybe not in another, it's not
the same thing.
Everything has to be looked at individually.
With that being said, seeing no other commissioners wanting to speak, we do have a motion to deny.
Commissioner Smith, how say you?
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Aye.
Commissioner Cole?
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson?
Aye.
Commissioner McDade?
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt?
Nay.
The chair is an aye.
That motion will carry 6-1.
This will go next to City Council on September 27th.
It will be a public hearing item for them.
With our recommendation for denial, I believe they will need a super majority at Council.
Is that correct, Hillary?
Thank you very much.
I am going to call a recess here at 923 so we can clear the room.
We do have two more public hearing items to hear.
Why don't we go ahead and take a 10-minute break?
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for your patience and allowing us to take a brief recess.
I will call us back to order at 936 p.m.
We are on to our next public hearing item for this evening.
It's 5DZ22-0006.
I will invite Ron up for presentation and open the public hearing.
Hello, Ron.
Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission, Ron Mingata, principal planner with Development
Services.
This item for your consideration is a rezoning change for property.
The property is located on the northeast corner of Thomas Egan Road and University Drive.
It's approximately 9.56 acres.
As you can see with this exhibit here to the right, it is currently undeveloped.
The intention of the applicant is to develop with an industrial use, specifically a building.
I want to make note that the property, the two tracks north of this subject property
is also owned by the property owner and applicant.
For the future land use map, the subject area is designated as light industrial.
By definition or description that is of the light industrial is intended for light industrial
activity, specifically along adequate access, and if there is easy transition, that is also
part of that designation.
Per development code, approval criteria for approval, it meets the criteria.
The proposal is consistent, again, with the future land use map.
The goals and policies of the comprehensive plan, consistent with the purpose of an LI
zoning district, which is what's being requested.
The zoning will not, at least not anticipated to generate significant adverse environmental
impact infrastructure or fiscal impacts related to that.
Utilities and infrastructure, when developed, can be served and meet the capacity for the
proposed use or zoning.
Publications were sent out to property owners, six specifically to property owners, three
to residents within the area, and as of this afternoon, this evening, there has been no
written response submitted to staff.
With that, staff recommends approval as it, again, meets the development code approval
criteria per section 245E as well as 272D, and with that, I'll stand for any questions.
The applicant is here if you have any questions for the applicant.
Thank you, Ron.
Any questions for Ron at this moment?
I will ask you this as staff was looking over this.
This is just down the road recently where we had an LI discussion.
I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it is in a similar area.
This is a little bit more rural, but yeah, we still have plenty of residences.
Did staff think through any kind of neighborhood protection, think about any of that before
just recommending this straight ally zoning?
Yeah, no, certainly.
We looked at different, even particularly different zoning district, but I know that
with the development code, there's actually built-in buffer and screening requirements.
Again, you have Thomas Egan, which is a secondary arterial to the west, University to the south,
the properties to the north.
Again, that's probably where you're referring to a more rural agriculture.
I think ultimately, the general or the comprehensive plan shows that area to be developing more
intense use.
The area in general along US 380, you've got the industrial uses to the south, and again,
all of that was taken into consideration.
Specifically, again, with those built-in buffer requirements and screening and landscaping,
we felt comfortable with the ally.
I guess my concern is with a domino effect from these other R2 designations along 380,
which obviously we know they're probably going to change from R2, but we do have right to
the east of there, it's like Willow, Cottonwood.
I think those are maybe one acre, but it's more of like a neighborhood.
It's not a huge neighborhood, but there are several single-family residences not too far
down the road from this particular parcel.
We acknowledge that, and that's actually shown on the future line use map, as you see here
in the orange, given that that's an existing use, and certainly as part of any analysis,
we will look at that now.
The other part of what we looked at was the property is going to be developed just west
of an existing floodplain in ESA, so that would serve somewhat of a buffer to the east.
Okay.
Thanks, Ron.
That helps.
You're welcome.
Appreciate it.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
Ron, just a quick question so I make sure I don't put things in the wrong order.
I recall maybe a couple of years ago, there was a voluntary annexation and then rezoning
for a subdivision down south of Hickory Creek.
I think it was a sage book or something like that, and I recall that at least in that case,
we had the voluntary annexation come before council or PNZ and then council, and then
after that, there was a rezoning of that plus another parcel next to it from a previous
zoning that was in the city into their new zoning.
That seems like it was a different order than this.
Is the order of doing the annexation and the rezoning something that staff just leaves
up to the applicant however they want, or is that something that we typically prefer
in one way or another?
Certainly.
Obviously, that's an option as well.
We did discuss that with the applicant and actually advised them to do so, but again,
we don't have a say if they do or not.
They chose to go this route as part of their process, and again, the applicants here, you
can probably better explain to why that is.
Thank you.
Anything else for Brown at this time?
Okay.
I've got, I guess, just one, well, the applicant's here, right, with the presentation or ...
Yeah, well, come on up and I'll let you do that.
And hi.
Hi.
My name is Justin Toon.
How are you all tonight?
Yeah, just happy to hear to answer questions.
Okay.
Maybe to Commissioner Pruitt's question, I don't know if you heard his question or why-
I'll try to restate it a little bit more succinctly because I'm not typically good at that.
Why bring this application for this part of the land that you own, which is already in
the city limits for rezoning before you go through the voluntary annexation process?
Yes, sir.
So we actually have, we've actually done all the work as well for the annexation portion
as well, but after further discussion with Ron and actually he had spoken with Yale's
legal department as well, there wasn't any way to tie the two together and guarantee
that we would get the preferred zoning.
And so what we elected to do is it would take an additional rezoning step.
We realize now we'll have to do a rezone, an annex, and then another rezone, but we're
willing to do that in order to ensure that we get the rezoning that we desired.
Just to make sure I understand, in order to give you a higher confidence that a future
zoning might go through if you were to choose to be voluntarily annexed?
Correct.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, Hillary.
Thank you.
Since this relates to an interpretation that I made, I thought I might just add a little
bit of additional color.
Thank you.
Tying an annexation and a rezoning together saying that we will annex if we get preferred
zoning type X is just improper contract zoning and we can't recommend the city take that
action from a risk perspective.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Any other questions at the moment?
Any applicant?
Okay.
Thank you for coming up and answering that one.
Yes.
Thank you.
I do have one card here.
It is in support of this item and it's Sylvia Phillips.
Oh, she did leave.
Okay.
So I'm going to assume that she does not want to speak, but she is in support of this item
tonight.
I don't have any other cards on this item.
Is there anyone here wishing to speak?
Okay.
Seeing none and I don't have any callers for this.
I will close the public hearing and open the floor for a motion or discussion.
Commissioner Pruitt, you're still on there, but is that from previous?
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve.
Okay.
Commissioner Anderson?
A second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Is there further discussion?
Okay.
Seeing none.
I will take a roll call vote.
Commissioner Smith?
Aye.
Commissioner Anderson?
Aye.
Commissioner Cole?
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Aye.
Commissioner McDade?
Aye.
Commissioner Pruitt?
Aye.
Chair has an aye.
That motion carries seven zero.
That will take us to our final public hearing item for tonight, 5E DCA22-0004.
We'll invite Ron up for presentation and open the public hearing.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for my presentation real quick.
Presented to you this evening is a proposed code amendment to our parking requirements.
Before we get to the actual requirements, I just wanted to spend a few minutes, I know
we talked about this during the work session, but for the viewing audience, I want to make
sure that I did share this information.
Obviously, the reasons why we have parking regulations is really to find an actual parking
need or address a parking need without going below or above that, but also to mitigate
a couple of other things as well, mitigate traffic, enhance the vehicle and bicycle and
pedestrian safety as a result of the parking being provided, multimodal transportation
options, encourage that as well, address the storm water and heat runoff or heat island
effect that is, address water quality and as part of the landscaping and screening buffering,
provide some mitigation to address any adverse visual impact.
There are several sections of the code that talk specifically to exemptions.
Parking is exempt if a property is less than $5,000.
In the MD zoning district, there are exemptions for residential developments less than 10
or fewer units.
Non-residential developments are not required to provide additional parking, again, in the
MD zoning district.
The other part is if there is a need to have a parking alternative, there are options available
in the code that you see here.
These are options that can go below the requirements, but they can also increase.
If they were to propose something, they would need to submit a parking study and that is
considered by the planning director.
So with that said, the parking code amendments that we have here is really to ensure that
there's actual parking or the actual parking needs are provided for the uses that I will
go through.
Also, to further clarify that is, some of the requirements and also add some procedures
to help with some of that flexibility that we talked about earlier.
Before bringing it forward to the Planning Zoning Commission, the Denton Development
Code Review Committee did meet with staff and staff presented this item to them four
specific times.
There was a lot of discussions, four meetings like I said, February, two in March and one
in April and the sections that we're going to be talking about or go over is what's listed
here on the right.
Real quickly, the uses that are being proposed to amend the parking code requirements are
town homes, duplex and manufactured home development.
Staff is proposing to reduce the parking requirements from four spaces per dwelling unit to two spaces
per dwelling unit.
Build and childcare going from one space per 500 to one space per 10 children or adults
as well as provide one space for each employee on the largest shift.
For religious assembly, wanting to use not necessarily the square footage of one space
per 250 square feet but rather use the building code occupancy load to base that parking ratio
and again that would be one space per four occupancy load.
Business trade school, college and university, because of the type of schools and programs
that many of these schools have differences, we wanted to give them the flexibility and
make that parking requirement based off of what their needs are so a direct determination
is what staff's proposing for these two uses.
Student school and public school, we spent some time with this with the DCRC.
We also communicated or worked with DISD staff and based on their input we are proposing
elementary or middle school to be one space per 12 students.
In high school, one space per two students design capacity.
In addition to that, plus one space per employee on the largest shift, again this is to address
the employee need for parking and lastly guest parking spaces as well, often schools have
events and other programs and this is to address those parking needs.
Restaurants, private club, bar, tavern and lounge, we did speak to this or I presented
to this during the work session that is and spent and shared some examples with you so
I won't go through all those examples but what staff is proposing is to use the occupancy
load for that particular use in that building and one space per four occupancy load plus
one space for each employee on the largest shift.
Again also adding additional parking for those takeout events as well as where folks have
deliveries they can have a particular space dedicated just for them up to five spaces.
We jump into the craft alcohol production, we are again going away from the one space
per 1,000 square feet production area and focusing on the number of employees on the
largest shift and if they do have a seating or tasting area we are proposing one space
per four occupancy load again to be consistent with the restaurant requirements as well.
Food processing as well as warehouse manufacturing and other manufacturing we are proposing one
space per employee on the largest shift or this is or one space per 3,500 square feet
of gross floor area, 3,500 square feet really was developed using other cities that have
actually similar developments.
We also used it based on some of the parking analysis and parking studies that were submitted
for these types of uses and we ended up with one space per 3,500 square feet.
I talked about earlier about the procedures, this is one add to help some with the flexibility,
we are adding a director determination for the ability to reduce the number of parking
spaces for uses that are listed in the table 7.9-I, so this is provided for that purpose.
Lastly multifamily dwelling we added to the mixed use and non-residential development
regarding infill and redevelopment.
If a development were to propose multifamily they would be able to reduce their parking
up to 10% if they fit the definition of where they are proposing as an infill or redevelopment
project.
That concludes my presentation and I will stand for any questions.
Thank you Ron.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Thank you for the presentation Ron and thank you for everything you have done on this.
So it all sounds great on paper and I was a member of the DCRC when this was discussed
and brought forward and in theory having parking minimums makes sense and increasing the minimums
to match current restaurant standards makes sense, but when we had the lower minimums
the restaurants you presented already exceeded the minimum and not only the initial minimum
that we have currently, but they would have exceeded the new minimum and the folks who
are coming forward with consternation and have difficulties with this amendment want
below the minimum.
So it sounds to me that I guess my question is why do we want a minimum at all for retail
restaurants and why does it make sense from your perspective to increase it to match where
restaurants are already going towards, right?
Can we continue to allow restaurants to make those own determinations?
So yes, the two examples that we showed were from the razor ranch area so they didn't have
really that, but I wanted to share with you how the new code would apply.
To your first question, why should we have a minimum for restaurants?
I think you referenced restaurants specifically.
I think as you know and I think it was mentioned earlier, you know as the population grows
obviously the number of parking spaces also gets impacted, right?
And so we don't want cars to overflow onto adjacent streets or adjacent neighborhoods
so having that minimum ensures that public health safety is provided and addressed traffic
and safety and all of the above.
So that's why we have a minimum for parking for that particular use.
Should we just eliminate minimum parkings altogether and have the restaurants or the
uses make that determination?
That's really hard to say.
I mean I think that's more of a policy question that I'm not able to answer.
I think we want to make sure we protect the citizens and by doing so establishing a minimum
is what we would recommend.
Thank you.
Thanks Ron.
Commissioner Anderson.
Thanks Chair.
Ron, I know we spoke in the work session that this is not going to affect some of the businesses
that are already in smaller established little areas that they're going to still be okay,
correct?
That's correct.
Any existing restaurants would be fined or obviously be non-conforming, however if a
restaurant use was to be taken over by another restaurant obviously they would still continue
because they're occupying an existing resident, I'm sorry restaurant use.
And also for taverns and bars and stuff like this as well.
Yes, every all the uses that are listed here are all the same.
And Ron to clarify, this does not apply to MD District, correct?
As I mentioned earlier, any uses both residential and non-residential in the MD Zoning District,
which is pretty much the downtown area and the surrounding areas would not, would still
be exempt from these parking requirements.
Right.
Okay.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you Chair.
Ron, whenever let's say a business wants to expand a restaurant or they need to do a remodel,
I know in work session you said a 50% remodel, how is that calculated, who enforces that?
Is that the certificate of occupancy process?
I know it's in the development code, but when does that get kicked off and how do we make
sure that that gets known by the person who's wanting to do the remodel or the expansion
before they begin that process?
Right.
So obviously they're submittal for their application, obviously they're going to submit an expansion
based on the existing square footage and we calculate, there's a definition for how square
footage is calculated.
That number, anything 50% or below would follow just that particular area and providing that
additional parking.
However, they go above that 50%, then the entire site will have to comply with the parking
requirements in place during that time.
So what if I'm a business owner and I do a 40% expansion and then three years later
I do another 40% expansion?
So there should be some, yeah, some project management there and of course we would try
to keep track of that as much as possible.
Okay.
And then I know on nonconformities from my time on DCRC that on nonconformities in the
past if there's a destruction of the building or a condemnation of the building, like a
fire or something else that happens, that when that building gets rebuilt it then is
falling, now has to fall underneath the new code, correct?
So that would remain the same with parking requirements?
Correct.
That would follow as well.
There's certain monetary number, right, that has to exceed and if it does then that would
apply.
Now they also have the ability to apply for a variance in that particular case through
the Zoning Board of Adjustments, so that's something else too.
Okay.
They can only apply for a variance in that specific instance of a destruction of the
building.
They can't apply for a variance in the experience or anything else like that or can they apply
for a variance in all scenarios?
So I think just particularly for that now if they choose to want to increase their parking
or decrease their parking, there's all the other alternatives that we discussed earlier
that they can submit to the planning director to review.
Okay.
So what you're saying is that the change of the code is not necessarily a hard and fast.
There are some opportunities.
Absolutely.
And I think if I haven't stressed that enough, that's something that I think Tina mentioned
during the work session and I think we discussed also that there are options and flexibility
built into the parking requirements to allow for these uses to submit their studies to
support their request.
Okay.
The only problem with it is it might create some undue cost and time measures for business
owners now is the only problem.
Right.
And I mean they have to certainly provide the research and support.
It's not just a letter with, you know, we want this, it has to be supported by some
data.
Gotcha.
Thanks.
Commissioner Anderson, do you want to open up?
Yes.
One more thing.
Again, MD area, downtown, all that stuff, if there was a fire, they do not have to rebuild
to the parking code, correct?
Because there is no place to park.
There is no parking requirement.
Right.
Okay.
There's no parking code in the MD district.
I appreciate the question.
All this stuff, so.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
Just a couple of questions.
Ron, can you remind me, and I know that every project would be different because the new
calculation would be based on a floor plan and that kind of thing, but can you remind
me kind of what multiplier increase we're talking about for the restaurant specific
use in those examples that you brought between the current requirement and the proposed requirement?
It's quite a lot.
I think from the examples that we saw, some examples were from 10 to I think 40, you know,
required based on the new requirements, and again, that's just to address just the employee,
but also the square footages just seem to be not the appropriate way of calculating parking.
So there was a significant, I think some of them over, I think 400%, but there was a significant
jump.
Okay.
Thank you.
And then just to make sure we're all in the same wavelength because when I read through
the code, how many percent of changes to the building is complex.
So in that less than 50% change, my understanding is that you're not allowed to do anything
that increases the nonconformity.
So in this case, say, heaven forbid we have another pandemic, but say something happens
and it's desirable for a restaurant to put a couple of picnic tables out in the parking
lot in an existing parking space.
Would that be allowed or not?
So repeat that one more time.
What was being proposed?
To do some alteration to the property, say put some outdoor seating down where a parking
space used to be if they are already at or below the required parking under the code
at that time.
So obviously if there were to add seating or area, then the occupancy load would have
to increase, and therefore the parking requirement would have to be adjusted, and so they would
need to provide, if that is the case, additional parking on site.
Okay.
And then just one last thing.
You mentioned, and thank you for covering the reasons that we do this, because this
is one of those things where if we don't back up to the 10,000 foot view, we get very mired
in the details, and that's probably mostly my fault, but I'll take a breath.
You talked about some of those spillover effects of illegal parking or parking on a street
that you're not supposed to park on, safety issues, that sort of thing.
Have we experienced those because of our current parking requirement number in Denton that
we've seen?
Can you give us an example?
So yeah, I think the quicker one that I can think of is the two ways off of I-35.
I think that was one where they had to identify additional parking, I think mainly because
they didn't have enough parking for their employees.
So because I-35 is a frontage, and then I think it was Windsor, the road, that really
wasn't able to provide on-street parking, so they had to go to an adjacent property.
So things like that, that was one example I'm familiar with.
I know that there are some other ones that are in the same area where they're parking
on adjacent properties, now either permitted or not permitted.
We don't want them to be parking on a street, especially when that street is not allowing
parking per se.
And that can certainly be an issue if there's a fire or there's a need to go through the
street and there's not enough room for that.
So again, all of that is towards trying to help make sure that there is adequate parking
and that they're not overflowing onto the street.
Sure, I understand.
So I guess in the example you provided with Chewie's, is Chewie's still in business there?
Were they able to work through those issues?
Yeah, I believe they were able to purchase the property to the south and use that as
additional parking.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks Ron.
I think that might be all the questions for the moment.
I do have several cards to speak on this item.
The first one I have is James McBennett.
Hi, if you'll state your name and address, your time will begin.
Hi, I'm James McBennett, 818 West Oak.
I just moved here a week ago, so I do not have experience of...
Well, welcome.
Thank you.
But I have studied cities since I've been 18 years old, right from architecture school
and onward.
Looking at it from an economics perspective, from an architecture perspective, from a quality
of life perspective, from a healthy city perspective, from a cost of living perspective, from pretty
much every perspective I know, parking minimums are an absolutely terrible idea.
They are the laughing stock of the world.
I'm European, maybe that's my perspective, but it is something the world laughs at America
at.
It is really responsible for the worst kind of urbanism.
That's basically my point, and I just want to sort of be against parking minimums of
any kind, and I really think it's a terrible idea to increase them.
I think, so you build a city and they will come.
If you increase the size of the roads, you increase the size of the parking spaces or
increase the number of parking spaces, you just have more sprawl, more people spreading
out.
From a more recent perspective, gas prices in Norway went up to $20 a gallon.
They only went to a fraction of that here.
You do not have any resilience against so many things that could go wrong when you develop
a city in this way.
That's basically my point.
Thank you.
Thank you, and welcome to town.
Next card I have is Desiree Wiley.
Hi.
You probably know the drill by now, you've been here a while.
Yes.
My name is Desiree Wiley, 1316 Kendal Drive.
I own Loco Cafe right up the street.
A lot of my questions have already been answered.
I guess just a couple would be, for example, in the building that Loco Cafe in, there's
multiple businesses in that one building.
Sorry, I don't speak in front of people a lot.
I guess my question would be, how would you as a business determine how many spaces you're
responsible for, then the hair salon down the way, versus maybe another business moves
in?
Is that something that a landlord would be responsible for?
How would you designate those spots?
I do believe that we're grandfathered in, but just kind of looking at that was a question
I had.
Who would be responsible for building those spots, I guess, if you're a landlord versus
the leasee, who would you, I guess, who would have to build those spots and be responsible
for them was the question I had, and that was pretty much it.
I think most of my other ones were answered through that.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thanks, Desiree.
Ron, because it's fresh in mind, I'm going to bring you up so we don't lose the questions.
First of all, Loco's in MD District, as far as I know.
No.
You're not.
Okay.
Parkway, right?
Just north of Parkway?
Congress.
Sorry, Congress.
Okay.
Yes.
That would not apply, but-
Okay.
Yeah, can you maybe get offline with her then?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah.
Because it's applying directly to your, right?
You have an individual concern?
I guess just in, yes, specifically to my spot, like if other people move into the building,
or-
Okay.
I'll have Ron get with you to answer those specific questions so that we can, yeah, carry
on here.
I'm going to call up Ken Curran.
There you are.
Hi.
I'm Ken Curran.
I'm at 600 North Locust right across the street from Desiree, and same concerns.
My biggest concern is, or question I guess would be, I think we've experienced a lot
of success with the downtown revitalization, and that was due to getting rid of parking
requirements.
Why wouldn't we look at expanding that instead of constricting it or limiting it, you know?
Unless there's a massive amount of parking issues that are going on in and around the
square that are causing all sorts of problems that I don't know about, that you have data
or statistics that point to that, but it's kind of the shining star of Denton.
Everybody, when your family comes to visit, you take them downtown.
Why don't we want that to grow?
It can.
There's plenty of ... I've lived in Denton long enough, and my idea of what downtown
Denton is is a little bit bigger than that purple area on that map, but we've drawn those
arbitrary lines on Parkway.
I never understood why Parkway was ... If you remember, Parkway used to have a stoplight
on it.
I never understood that either, but to try to fix a problem out on the highway by limiting
what can go on downtown, it seems like a solution looking for a problem.
We ... The last thing I want to do as a business owner that could potentially sell my business
one day is tell the person that I'm selling it to, "I have no idea what the city's going
to tell you to do with your business."
Ten years from now, they may make it more onerous or more difficult.
Just in my own experience, since I've been there, this will be the third or fourth change
in the parking requirements since I've moved into the greenhouse.
I used to have 12 spots on Congress Street.
When I built the restaurant, the city made me get rid of them.
Now, you're telling me you want me to put more parking in.
Actually, you're telling me I'm grandfathered in, so I don't have to, but the next guy would.
I am, in all fairness and honesty, I'm looking at developing in another place right on the
other side of Eagle Drive, and I'm going to come back.
My biggest obstacle is going to be parking.
It's a huge spot, but unless you want me to turn it all into concrete, I'm not going to
have enough parking for it.
I'm already dealing with other departments in the city.
How am I going to get the parking for this spot?
My favorite part about Denton is the parts we can walk to and we can bike to, and I think
we should do everything we can to encourage more of that, and adding more parking lots,
bigger parking lots, more parking spaces is going to put more people in cars, driving
down Locust Street, driving down Ample Street, and that's the last thing I want to see.
I like people that can drive and walk and get to downtown areas.
We should look at expanding it, not keeping it small.
That's all I got.
Thank you, Ken.
Next card I have is Sean Hunt.
Is Sean here?
Okay.
Next card I have is Suzanne Rumer.
Is that right?
Before I start I have a question, public hearings are four minutes for speakers, or three?
It's three?
Oh darn.
I thought I had four.
Are you sure?
I thought the card said four.
It's four, but it's also at the chair's discretion.
Oh, so it got shortened.
Sorry.
Okay.
Hi, I'm Suzy Rumer, 1700 Crescent Street.
I just wanted to speak in support of anything that would reduce parking requirements and
oppose anything that would increase them.
I'm going to read a little bit from this book, The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoop.
He is a retired urban planning professor.
This was written in 2011, so just keep that in mind that some things could have changed.
I don't intend this as a slight towards planning staff.
I love our planning staff.
This is a slight towards parking minimums.
Planning education provides no instruction on how practicing planners should set parking
requirements, and textbooks offer no help.
Here are the four editions of the Urban Land Use Planning, which is a text that's used
in a lot of planning courses.
This distinguished text is the Bible of urban use planning, yet no edition mentions parking.
Most texts in regional science, transportation planning, and urban economics also ignore
parking.
I've asked many professors of urban planning on how planners set parking requirements,
and the answer is always no.
Perhaps planning students learn almost nothing about parking requirements because their professors
know nothing to teach them.
How the urban land use with the biggest footprint and profound effect on transportation system
has been invisible to scholars in every discipline.
We're trying to prescribe how much parking we need when we really don't have a good,
accurate way to figure it out.
When you do it by square foot, as Ron said, it hasn't really worked out right.
Somebody surveyed, and it's in this book, somebody surveyed 17 home depots.
They really, at their busiest day of the year, at that busiest hour, only used about half
of what was required by the city.
Every one of those empty parking spaces that sits there is a waste of resources and space
and money.
What I want to end with is that we really all benefit by relaxing or maybe even someday
eliminating mandatory parking minimums.
Everybody has something to gain from it.
Conservatives will see that it reduces government regulation.
Environmentalists will see that it reduces energy consumption, air pollution, and carbon
emissions.
Business leaders will see that it unburdens enterprise.
New urbanists will see that it enables people to live at high density without being overrun
by cars.
Libertarians will see that it increases the opportunities for individual choice.
Developers will see that it reduces building costs.
Local elected officials will see that it reduces traffic congestion, encourages infill redevelopment,
and pays for local public services without raising taxes.
The current system of planning for parking does such widespread harm that the right reforms
can benefit almost everyone.
I hope you'll keep in mind as we discuss anything about parking that it's not just about cars
overrunning the parking lots.
We also have to think about the fiscal sustainability of the city, the environmental sustainability
of the city, and not assume that everyone's going to be driving everywhere they go all
the time.
Thank you.
Thank you, Susie.
I'm going to give one more call for Shawn, whose card I have here.
Okay.
I do not see Shawn.
I do not have anyone on the phone, and I do not see anyone else here who hasn't already
spoken on this item.
So I will close the public hearing and open the floor for more discussion.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
There was another person who was here this evening, John Williams, who is a business
owner in the downtown area.
I think it is important to bring up maybe a point in regards to this.
I think the rest of the commission could definitely benefit from here.
There was conversation that I was having with him before or after he left that he was here
because the Main Street Association is interested in looking at the fact that they required
a zero, they had a zero requirement for minimum parking to entice businesses to come downtown.
And now they are beginning the discussion to look at changing that because there is
now the parking downtown itself.
And so I know the MD is excluded from this.
I get that point.
I think it is just something that is fair before we get into a motion and a vote that
I think that parking requirement while yes, Suzanne, I think that is a fair point, and
I certainly can see from the business owner's standpoint having to deal with the limitations
on future business growth or the possibility of viability of selling a business later on
down the road can be hampered by this.
But at the same time, I think that there is plenty that is being made in this change to
the code that is reducing unnecessary parking, specifically in multifamily areas where we
see a lot of unused parking in some spots and then an increase in parking in areas where
we know what we love about Denton is the community fabric and the weirdness of it and that one
of the things that does hamper the ability for that community fabric to grow and continue
to be healthy is it becomes a headache to get anywhere.
And culturally, I agree, I think having multimodality is awesome and being able to walk places is
great and I want to adopt that and I want to walk and I want to bike, but I can't convince
150,000 people to do that as well.
And so I think that there is small steps we can make towards this, which I think is important
to bring up to the Commission before we get to the motion.
I'll allow you a very brief moment if you want to come and rebut that.
No, you have to do it from the podium, sir.
Thank you.
It just sounds like picking winners and losers.
You know, it's like we're going to, we've got these people here, we're going to let
you survive, but no one else can come in because we've already got what we want.
You know, and that idea that you can't get 150,000 people to walk downtown, they're never
going to drive downtown either, you know, and it's, it's, show me a place where those
kind of parking minimums has been successful to increase business and I'm on board.
But you're already showing me a place where you decrease parking minimum, decrease parking
requirements and it's been wildly successful.
So you know, and to lump us in with, you know, something out on the highway or churches or
other things is, is, I think disingenuous, you know, there's a, there's an area you can't
just blanket everybody with the same kind of thing, you know.
And if you do, or I don't, I'm not sure what you were saying John was saying or implying
that now he wants parking and John's a good friend of mine.
I love him.
I'm, you know, he's, I'm trying to get him to be part of this new project that I'm doing.
But that idea that, Hey, now I'm here.
Now let's have parking requirements.
I don't know if that's what you were saying.
No, he was, what he was saying was that he was concerned.
What I don't want to get into is a back and forth discussion.
So to make sure the commission was clear what I was trying to communicate there, what was
being said was that when there was absolutely no parking minimum requirement, it did bring
a lot of attraction to the businesses down there, but it has its own side effects of
now creating limitation for people to even be attracted to go down there because there's
no place to park.
I think we've all experienced the headaches of having to have parking around the square
at the times like that.
So I think it's a point that from business center that I think should be made to the
commission for discussion.
Thank you.
Uh, commissioner Villarreal.
Yeah.
I have a point of information.
Do we have to vote on the code amendment wholesale or can we exclude parts of the amendment?
Uh, I guess I'll, I'll let that be a legal thing, but I believe what we're voting on
is what's being presented to us today.
Um, but Tina, if you have remarks, I'd love to defer.
Okay.
So if there is, if there was certain amendments that you were not in agreement, um, that you
wanted to see changed, um, probably the best thing to do would be to postpone this item
and give us direction as to what you're wanting to see changed.
Um, and then I would, if it's substantial changes to the proposed ordinance, we'd probably
want to consider sending it back to the DCRC because the DCRC has, um, evaluated this extensively
and so now if, you know, if you were just wanting to make one tweak to a provision,
you could, you could recommend approval as presented with that one tweak.
So I mean, I guess it's up to the chair's discretion also as to how she would like to
receive the motion, but to me, it really depends upon what is the nature of the change that
you might be wanting to contemplate, um, to assess what the best course of action is.
So say hypothetically, I wanted to motion that we approve the code amendment with the
changes to the retail business section removed.
It sounds to me like you're recommending I would go back to DCRC instead of us having
the chance to approve it now or is that the chair's discretion?
The Planning and Zoning Commission, because this is a zoning process, does have the ability
to, you know, recommend that modification to council.
So if, if you're just looking to modify that one parking provision, then you could go ahead
and make a motion and, and with that proposed modification being made, if, if we're looking
at like one provision within the code, to me, I think the concern becomes if we're starting
to really pick apart the code and making multiple changes throughout, then, then we need to
postpone the item and either the commission work through it or divert any potential issues
or revert it back to the DCRC to explore those items of concern.
I agree, Tina, but I would also like to suggest that you and staff brought forward all these
changes for a discrete reason.
So if removing one of the provisions would still mean staff needed to come back for subsequent
code amendment, that could get kind of logistically problematic.
Right.
And that's why, that's why to me it depends upon what the nature of the amendment is.
Let me weigh in here.
Okay.
So we could talk parking from now until 10 years down the road and no one, everyone's
not going to be happy.
What I can tell you is the DCRC, that you are a member of, has sat and had thoughtful
substantive discussion multiple times and we have hashed out and we have had a very
good thoughtful individualized talk about the various deficiencies that are in our code.
This was not a discussion about eliminating parking minimums.
That was never a discussion.
That was not what we were on the table to do.
That's a discussion for another time that that could be something that the DCRC could
look at down the road, but that's not what we did with all of the time and hours that
we put into this.
We were fixing deficiencies that are in our code.
That's what we set out to do here and I believe we set out and did that here.
We took individualized, we studied, staff studied, what is not working with certain
businesses here?
What is working?
What do we need to change?
What is deficient in the code?
That's what we're changing here.
I appreciate the thoughtful comments and all of this and urbanism is a wonderful concept,
a great concept, but once again, that's not what we were discussing here.
I think there was a false narrative out there about what we were really bringing forth here.
These changes reduce parking in some instances, increase it in others because it wasn't working.
It gives an alternative to staff to reduce parking in certain developments and there's
nothing in these changes in my opinion that suggests that the city is focusing on making
the city less walkable and less bikeable.
That's not the case.
We just approved a mobility plan that is focused on making that better, making all of it better
and it's multimodal and multimodal means walking, biking and yes, driving.
I know the European concept is fabulous.
I love it myself.
I was there last month and I'm heading back there soon.
I think it's fantastic.
I think it only works in certain parts of our city right now and we can continue to
connect it and we can continue to make that downtown area bigger and I hope that we do
and I hope that eventually we can get some streets that don't have parking at all and
it's all walking and that's going to take some time but when we make changes like this
it's for development in all of our city and yes, we have suburbs and you know what?
People like to live in suburbs.
It's an actual another way to live along with living in a downtown lifestyle and somewhere
that you walk and bike which is a lifestyle choice which is a fabulous choice as well
but it doesn't make one better than another, it makes it options and I think that's important
and again, this is not flippant discussion here.
This started even before the four meetings that you mentioned, we started certain discussions
I remember in multifamily back when we were in COVID time and we were doing this via Zoom.
That's when we started this discussion.
So this is two years in the making and so to just sit here from the dais and say oh
I just want to take this out of the -- I think it's -- I certainly could not get on board
with that.
That one person sitting up here just wants to pluck that out because this was a collaborative
discussion with not only the DCRC which is made up of three members of this board and
three members of council but with staff and with business owners and other cities and
there's a lot of time and effort here so that's my comment as chair here to plucking something
out of what's before you if that helps.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you chair.
So I think I'd like to offer maybe some history and my impression of the DCRC discussions
on this.
I think I'd hate to see this go back to square one because there was a lot of good work as
chair Ellis points out and really from my perspective I'll be honest that there are
a few slight increases and some other major increases in schools and that kind of thing
that I honestly think are just going to be an empty parking lot at schools but there
was clear consensus against that position.
So from my perspective the thing that there was more discussion about at DCRC was these
commercial uses of the restaurants and bars and the craft breweries and that sort of thing
and so if I were going to draw a cut line right of what's baked and done it would be
everything but those but I'd like to hear from staff right because Ron I asked you you
know what examples do we have about a problem and so you brought up the chilies.
Are there near term things where this particular provision of the food service and craft brewery
is is going to be a problem and we have like a specific thing that needs to be addressed
or or would we still be moving the ball forward if we considered a little bit more time on
those and and move forward with the rest of the stuff.
So I can I mean as you already know you know this has been we've been discussing this for
some time and I know that we didn't just bring it just because there was obviously reasons
for it I just unfortunately I can't think of any recent developments that have been
concerned.
I know that there are situations or restaurants that we see often that are over park now there
may not be an issue because they are able to find parking adjacent to their property
and maybe there's some on street parking that they were able to find but in the end we're
trying to find a suitable actual parking for that particular use in this particular one
is for restaurants okay and and as presented this amendment and actually our existing code
already has some provision for applicants making a case that they need more parking
than our minimums are right so that yeah that's right as built into the development code there's
some flexibility and again what we're trying to do with that flexibility and we're seeing
some consistency as far as requests is to then make it more per the code and not have
to go through that process.
Okay yeah I certainly the more we can do to streamline staff's time I'm I'm in favor of
thank you Ron you know I lost my train of thought just a second sorry I think we do
our best work as a commission when we can really come behind clear message to the council
and say this is what we like this is where we're going and this is why as opposed to
you know a split vote where everybody comes up with their own reasons of what's happening
and then who knows what happens at council right but yeah I'll just leave it at that
thank you.
Yeah my goal is not to throw a wrench into the situation I took into consideration different
thoughts and voices that came regarding this issue and I was just doing my best as a commissioner
to listen to those concerns do my individual research that happened seven months ago I
was on the commission for about two months at that point and people can change their
considerations they can change their viewpoints on certain issues I agree with Eric that we
should probably move forward in a united fashion on this and that's why I asked the question
about removing a certain part because I don't want to send this back to square one so I
just wanted to make that clear.
Well and forgive me commissioners but I am confused the two of you sit on the DCRC with
me none of this is new we went over all of this multiple times and it was before we went
on to any other topic that we have been discussing over the weeks it has been are we ready to
bring this before PNC and then make a recommendation to city council nothing is ever not been fully
discussed or brought to this dais before before the committee agreed to and I am incredibly
confused why we're sitting here after all the discussion that we had over many hours
and many weeks and you're basically saying you've changed your mind we're not ready
to bring this have run bring this before us so we can make a recommendation to city council
so very confused by that commissioner Anderson thank you chair I'm not on the DCRC board
so I am not in favor of parking minimums just throw that there I think a business does their
due diligence when they're looking for a business to our building to occupy they look for parking
for their customers I don't think they're going to rent a building and have adequate
I mean they're gonna look for adequate parking yeah I just I think it should be left up to
the business owners when they're out there looking for a property to occupy for the adequate
parking that they think they're gonna need and like Ron said about the IHOP how they
are four or six parking spots short of what the new rule would be so now are we gonna
go back and ask these businesses that aren't in the MR to upgrade their parking lot now
they're gonna have to come out of pocket spend more money to build at more parking even on
Locust Street just north of your you know the the greenhouse and cafe loco you know
you have Giuseppe's he's outside of the MR district Giuseppe's if something happened
to his building and he had to rebuild he has no parking that's in a historic home so he
would be out of business so I think it's I think it should be left up to the business
owners they're not they're not gonna try to occupy a building that's not gonna adequately
have enough adequate parking for their business because I think they're just they're just
losing money so thank you.
So once again Commissioner Anderson I will reiterate the fact that the discussion the
DCRC was not to remove parking minimums that that was not a discussion that was had that
was not on the table that is not what was being discussed these are amendments to certain
types of businesses for things that are broken in our code currently that helps us actually
go forward if you all if we want to send this back to committee we're gonna have the same
types of discussions that we have had over the last couple of years because eliminating
parking minimum is not on the table right now that this city is not ready for that or
at least staff has not brought that to our attention on the DCRC like this is something
that we should consider so while I understand that there's people who feel passionate about
it and what you just brought up it's beyond ridiculous because again we could go on and
on and on and we are not gonna make everybody happy what we're trying to do here is make
a a code that works better for all businesses no matter where they're located and going
forward no one's making anyone do anything backward no one is making anyone do anything
except make a more useful code I'll leave it at that there's a motion on the floor Commissioner
Smith like to make a motion to approve the the code as it is been presented I think that
our DDC is was approved in 2019 already has the parking parking minimum requirements in
there made my point I think that the the changes we make today will be a progression towards
something what we want to do which is more urban walkable more friendly to the mobility
plan that we've approved so with that I'll make a motion to approve Commissioner Cole
second okay we have a first and a second for approval Commissioner Pruitt thank you chair
we'll just see where this goes I'll go ahead and move that we remove from the motion the
amendments including bar tavern and a lounge private club restaurant restaurant with drive-thru
as well as craft alcohol production and that's it please sorry from a procedural perspective
we need to either table the motion that's on the floor or withdraw the motion on the
floor or request an amendment or how do you reject the amendment there's no or reject
it yeah you can request a friendly amendment Jesse Davis says there is no friendly amendments
I reject your amendment so correct me if I'm wrong but under Robert's rules I have the
opportunity to see if someone else would like to second my amendment is that correct at
this point in the evening I don't recall I'll just be perfectly candid chair would you like
to yeah what what I what I will say is Hillary already weighed in that we are not going to
piecemeal amend this that that is not a good idea for the city so plucking something out
of these amendments that we have chosen as a committee to move forward we're going to
move it forward as a whole or we're going to delay a vote or we're going to deny it
though those are basically what's before us but we're not going to cherry pick out of
it no from a legal perspective that was not advised and we will take our legal counsel's
advice I will take as chair our legal counsel's advice we have a first and a second on the
floor for approval Commissioner Smith thank you chair last last time we've had a we had
a vote about a month ago where a motion to approve did not pass and automatically made
a deny I talked about it after that vote that time I think there is plenty discussion tonight
that if this vote to approve does not pass there would probably be a request to motion
a table just want to make that put out there because in the past we had it we're an approved
not approved made a deny I don't think that that we'd want to deny that we'd rather have
it be a table so I'll just make that clear now before we take a vote I actually remember
that and I did some reading on that and you're correct the chair has the discretion of whether
to accept a subsequent a motion okay thank you is there further discussion Tina thank
you if this motion were to not pass then I would request direction from the commission
as to what you are wanting to have potentially modified so then the chair can determine whether
or not this needs to go back to DC RC or if that is something that the planning and zoning
Commission would just further evaluate appreciate that let's go ahead and move on this motion
and we'll see where we land Commissioner Smith I Commissioner Cole I Commissioner Villarreal
I Commissioner Anderson a Commissioner McDade I Commissioner Pruitt a chair is an I that
motion carries five to that will move us to our planning and zoning matrix for this evening
Tina I will that to you okay just a couple of items to be able to address with recent
council action so we had two cases that were recently considered by council there was an
alternative ESA plan for Denton Exeter that was approved unanimously but my council if
you recall they were needing to modify a portion of the ESA to accommodate some drainage structures
and they were restoring an area much larger than what they were disturbing so that was
approved the other item was the zoning request for the northeast corner of Locust and Hercules
from R2 to SC the suburban commercial zoning district this was the where we had the religious
facility property that was wanting to do the cell tower and the head surrounding property
and council voted to approve the request to SC and they approve that unanimously other
than that I do not have anything else to report on and I know Commissioner Smith you had made
mention of a possible addition to the matrix I guess the one thing I would comment on is
we will update the matrix to remove the annexation presentation item that was given this evening
if you felt that was sufficient yeah it was great thank you Commissioner Smith not to
play with the point I made it earlier because it was probably a late night but I just want
to make sure my request for the matrix is clear just is there a way that we can add
HOA management companies to the notification if the land in which the HOA governs is being
notified but only three or four homes within that HOA are actually being notified that
it might be helpful just for neighborhood communication and so on so forth within there
that might be something we can include and yes we can look at that and actually they
were notified so because the HOA since the HOA lot was within the notification area that's
considered a property owner and that would have gone to the management company then we
don't have to even add that onto this matrix I just I don't know how that works and I think
that knowing that now it does work and they just they didn't communicate their residents
that ain't on the city so okay right yeah they're considered a real landowner so we
notify them gotcha and I think what can make that problematic is depending on probably
whose address is on the HOA stuff because you have management companies and you have
you know then private groups within the neighborhood that they just run it as homeowners so that
could put the city in a it's a good question it could put the city in a weird position
depending because HOAs are run differently throughout our town is there anything else
for the matrix any concluding items all right thank you all it's late one we're gonna adjourn
at 10 43 p.m.