Welcome to the work session meeting of planning and zoning
commission for October 10th 2018.
It is 439. We'll open up the work session at this time.
Start out with clarification of agenda items
for the meeting. There is no consent agenda, is that
correct? No.
Perfect. So the first item 3a is actually being postponed
to a future date not determined yet. So the first item we
can walk through will be 3b which is Julie
z 18-14.
Good evening. Evening Julie.
All right I'm Julie Wyatt senior planner with the city and
I am presenting z 18-14. It's a commercial
rezoning to you tonight. So request before you is to hold a
public hearing and consider making a
recommendation regarding the rezoning from a pd 115
district to an rcc district. The subject property
is in the vicinity of loop 288 highway 77 also known as
north elm and then bonnie bray and it's
about nine acres. More specifically pd 115 a detail plan
was approved for this pd back in 2004 for a
church as well as the accessory daycare or school and that
was approved and but it was never built.
So now the applicant is coming forward. They're requesting
a rezoning to develop the site with a
mixed use center. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair. Hey
Julie was that like brought into the
pd after the fact or with the pd at the time? It's just so
weird that the pd is nicely kind of
carved out and then you've got that little piece. I was
just curious. That is a good question. The
pd actually included a lot more property. I think the
property as it's gone forward has been zoned
out of the pd. So now that I say that I'm questioning
myself.
Yeah I do think that was the I think that was the and I can
I could verify that before the
the meeting because it's a good question but that that I
believe that there it was larger but it has
has zoned out. I've got those documents. I'll just have to
reference them. So it's a good question.
I'll find out for you. So as with. Commissioner Beck. I'm
thoroughly confused and I think it was
just a misprint. I've got this one that says z1814 and then
the actual background information it says
z180011. Was that a typo or something? It is a typo. I
apologize. Okay all right so I've got the right stuff.
You have the right thing. I have the wrong project number
at the front. I got a little
excited about a different project. So no you're correct. So
it's z1814. Yes.
So as with all rezoning cases we look at the criteria for
approval in sub chapter 3 of the
debt and development code. First does it comply with the
future land use and then second does it
is there adequate provision of the transportation water
sewer those public infrastructure
items. So first we'll look at the debt and plan 2030. This
property is located in a business
innovation designation future land use. As you know the
intent is to provide for well-planned
large scale employment parks as well as those accessory
uses such as retail restaurant,
higher density residential. RCCD in this instance is
appropriate and in that business innovation
because it would allow the property to develop with those
complementary uses like those retail
and and the commercial uses. RCC district is a primarily
commercial district so it would allow
those accessory use or those supporting uses. And that's
important because this property is
near more residential areas more institutional areas. You
probably don't want to see large scale
like industrial type uses so those supporting uses would be
appropriate in this location.
Additionally it's near the 377 or I'm sorry 77 and loop 288
corridors so that those access
and the roadways are the types of roadways you want to see
near commercial areas to help them be
successful. We also looked at the mobility for the area.
Now on the screen is a concept plan. I just
want to caution you that this is a straight rezoning. This
is a concept plan that the applicant
has provided as part of a trip generation analysis but this
is an approval of this concept plan
so that if if this zoning district was approved any of the
uses that would be permitted in RCCD
as well as the development scale would be permitted.
Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair.
Julie that's for obviously outside of the scope of what we
're looking at site wise right? Yes.
Because they obviously own the land to the left. Yes yes
and we'll talk about that. So
so we did ask them to do a trip generation analysis as part
of this request and and as part
of that they actually looked at the entire 32 acres that is
at this corner of loop 288
and highway 77 because that is adjacent RCCD zoning so it
would develop in a complementary way
and I believe they are looking at developing that entire
corner so they wanted to look at
it comprehensively. However the request is only for this
nine acres in in black so does that make
sense? Okay. Commissioner Bec. Thank you chair. Just for
fill me in a little bit I believe the new
high school is going in this area too. We're gonna get
there. Okay good thanks. If I don't answer
your question let me know. Okay so so as part of a trip
generation analysis they're they're using
some land use assumptions and as part of that they they
assumed 400 multifamily dwellings and
122,000 square feet of retail. Based upon those assumptions
the ITE trip generation manual
anticipates a generated 9,800 trips for this property or
for the entire 32 acres. The am peak
hour trips of 391 and the pm peak hour of 833 and that's a
lot of trips. When you combine that with
Commissioner Beck's point about the Denton High School that
is is anticipated to come in in this
area and in about this location down here. You have the UNT
Discovery Center already in place in
this area. There is a townhome development coming in in
this location. Multifamily. You have a
regional park and then in in the near future you're also
going to be seeing potentially a
single-family development in this area. There's a lot going
on and and because of that our city
staff has already looked at some mobility improvements for
for this general area and
and particularly for Bonnie Bray. So you might be aware
that Bonnie Bray is being improved on the
south side of town between university and vintage. However
because especially because of the Denton
High School improvements it's now on the radar to go ahead
and improve the north side of Bonnie Bray.
So they are they are already working on the capacity and
safety improvements storm water
and utility locations for this area. The anticipated Bonnie
Bray will be four lane
divided arterial. Currently it's under design so the final
alignment hasn't been determined. So
you'll see there's a lot of green lines on this map. So
here's Bonnie Bray now. The mobility plan
shows it tracking in this location to the west. However
after our engineering department has looked
at it they feel like maybe tracking to the east is actually
a better alignment. So they're they're
actually looking at this. What they really want to do is
hit three seven hit 77 at a right angle.
Engineering doesn't like to see skews at intersections. It
's less safe. So whatever the
alignment it would need to hit 77 at a right angle and then
and then track north. They're working
with the North Central Texas Council of Governments. So COG
is involved in this because it's a regional
transportation issue. So it is on the radar and it is
moving forward. We do anticipate that the
alignment's going to go in this direction but we don't know
for certain and we won't know until the
beginning of next year. The target construction is to begin
in late 2019 and then the completion is
to coincide with the Denton High School. They really want
to make sure that these are improvements are
in place before that high school opens up and so that's
anticipated for late 2021. Any questions
on the mobility? Commissioner Smith. Thank you Chair. So
the if engineering decides that the
alignment needs to be off you know left or right or east or
west however you want to look at this.
They could essentially start using imminent domain to claim
land that's outside of the right of way
already to be able to realign the road. Is that what you're
looking at and seeing?
They might use several tools in their toolbox. So if
properties along this alignment are platting
there may be right of way dedication as part of a plat and
as part of just the typical development
process. This property here I believe is UNT property so
they may work with UNT. To get a
piece. And then and then Richard sounds like he wants to
weigh in here. I guess I should ask not
silly because I'm not really I don't really care about the
I guess what I'm saying is that in
in relation to specifically the case that we're hearing
tonight we could be we could be voting
on a zoning case that could end up having if the city
engineers feel like the west alignment's
better than the east alignment it could end up with a
zoning case. We rezone this area
but there's going to be a road through the middle of it and
the applicant who's asking for this
rezone their entire conceptual plan doesn't matter anymore
and because now they got a road
running right through the middle of there. I would say it's
it's it's highly unlikely at
at this point. We did have we did have a discussion earlier
this week that I was in with with UNT on
that on that coming through that parcel. In addition where
that apartment complex is one of
the meetings we had with UNT recently there was a concern
from from their police department about the
crossing of students back and forth from that apartment
complex to to their facility there
and the necessity for for a light. This would would help
alleviate some of that. In addition
if it was tracking west it was like we're talking about a
hurricane there were there were two I
believe there were two spots where they were going to have
to install a bridge two different
bridges. Okay so it's pretty stupid and and so the just the
cost and maintenance associated with it
so that's that's where it kind of shifted to this. I just I
would hate to see us be like well we
could go we can go east we can go west here it's like well
why would we want to just go through and
have this applicant go through all the trouble getting this
rezone just for the city to say hey
by the way we're gonna blow our road through the middle of
your plot now. Yeah and we've kind of
have have had this applicant bringing this forward we've
kind of have it have had it on hold
okay for that for that very reason we don't want to get
down the line and all of a sudden
got ruined their dream. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair.
The green line on the other side of 77
that's supposed to be a continuation of body ground? Well I
drew that so it's definitely very
conceptual. Okay but the intent is to go is to go north and
and and but it doesn't connect you'd
have to go up and down. I don't know where they're okay got
cha. Julie real fast can you go back to
their site plan? Sure. Okay I I know it's conceptual but I
just want to make sure that they weren't
dependent on the Bonnie Bray access if it potentially gets
moved but it looks like they're
gonna have theoretically access directly from 77 so if that
if Bonnie Bray gets shifted to the right
they're not going to necessarily lose traffic to their
their spot. They would have to work with
engineering regarding but regarding any access but probably
their main access would be from 77. I
think that's probably the most logical place it's the
largest road. And then back on the slide that
you were you were on to the mobility plan none of the three
I want to go with cone of uncertainty.
None of those three options the west the existing or the
east hit at a 90 degree so it seemed like
you'd come up to the highway and and make it a 90 degree if
that is the case for all three options
why are we moving Bonnie Bray east or west why don't we
just leave it where it is? Well I think
they're trying to get it closer to that 90 degree. It may
not be perfectly unskewed but to have to
have it closer to that 90 degree right now if you've driven
Bonnie Bray you pretty much have to turn
around to look to see if cars are coming so I think they're
trying to improve the safety
at that intersection by getting it by getting it as close
to that 90 degree as possible.
Okay thank you. And I think that's also the case at loop 28
8 that they want a 90 degree intersection
there as well as it goes north. All right so we also looked
as part of the analysis at the
current zoning pattern as well as the development pattern.
The development pattern is you know
there's not a lot of development out here yet. It's coming
but it's not out here yet.
So we look mainly at the zoning pattern and RCCD is a
logical extension of that existing
zoning pattern. You can see along north loop 288 that there
is that RCC. It's pretty consistent RCCD.
So by approval of this of this request you could ensure
consistent development both in permitted
uses as well as development scale so that you'd have a
harmonious development pattern along that
area as the the parcels do develop. As it moves forward
development would have to comply with all
DDC requirements. That would include any tree preservation,
buffer screening, tree canopy,
site design, and lighting requirements. Right now this is
this is kind of new frontier in the city
of Denton so water and sewer aren't available so extensions
would be required with any development.
Notification was sent out. We haven't received any any
responses.
So based upon the criteria for approval and staff's
analysis we do recommend
approval of the request and I'll stand for any questions.
I don't see any thank you Julie. All right thanks. Next
item is 3C Z18-18A
and Cindy Jackson will be presenting.
Thank you. Let me bring up the presentation.
Okay Z18-18 is a rezoning request. The applicant is
requesting to rezone approximately 20.7
acres of property from the NR4 zoning district to the NRMU
12 zoning district. As you can see
the property is actually south of McKinney and north of
Trailhead and west of Lane.
Just for reference here's the loop right here and here's
McKinney right here.
The request the the current site is zoned NR4 as you can
see in this map. If the if this request
is approved the proposed zoning NRMU 12 is an extension of
the NRMU 12 that is located
to the north of the site and you can also see there's NRMU
12 located to the east of the site.
The applicant has prepared a concept plan. The concept plan
takes into account the topography
as well as tree preservation on the site. The topography is
this is kind of has some pretty
interesting topography where there's a 28 foot difference
between the area right in here and
the perimeter area so it kind of goes up. The applicant is
proposing townhouse development
with a density of six dwelling units per acre that's
approximately 120 townhouse units.
The applicant is also proposing to preserve as many trees
as possible. The minimum
preservation requirement for the for this site is 12.5
percent of protected trees.
The purpose of the NRMU district is the the request is to
facilitate the development of this
townhouse. It's kind of different from regular townhouses
that we you know other townhouses we've
seen they're not platted on their own lot. This is going to
be platted all on one lot. The units
are going to be sold individually and the whole development
will be considered common area.
So it's kind of condo style. According to our code it's
also multifamily so an SUP will be
required after they have completed the zoning process.
Cindy I realize this is the concept
plan we're dealing with zoning but I did notice there's a
contingency access to McKinney. Yes.
That is being worked on or that is actually a concept plan.
So the concept plan is going to be
emergency service only EMS access only. The primary access
will be from trailhead
and then they would go down to Dutchess to get to the loop.
And then just help me if you go back one
slide if you went back yeah this later development here
would that come back for separate SUP if they
wanted to develop later on something down there. Right the
applicant right now he's not he's not
proposing anything on this this part of the property here.
The applicant is waiting for the
citywide rezoning and the new zoning code to see what's
going to be permitted there and just then
then we'll decide what to do there. Thank you.
Okay. Mr. Cole. Quick question. Yeah. To the due north of
that are those apartments being built?
Yes. Right over here there are apartments are called I
believe Majestic on McKinney
and then over here is an electrical transmission site.
Right here is a church and affiliated school
and then over here are single family homes. This down here
is a duplex subdivision
and all of this over here is undeveloped. Just making sure
I was at the right place. Okay.
This is planning and zoning. Commissioner Sanchez. Yeah. On
Lane Street what eventually is the city
looking at to do with that particular street there? Well it
's a private street so right now the city's
not looking at doing anything to it. I mean as far as
trying to utilize it in the future if it's a
private street I mean I guess when I was looking at it I
know okay so it's a private is there any
way of the city getting access to that and trying to
utilize it for eventual because you you don't
have I just I was just wondering if you could extend that
all the way into into this subdivision here
so that you could be able to have more access or well exits
out of that area. If you look at the
concept plan we do have I mean the aerial map there is a
dead end street right here that is city owned.
Mockingbird? Yes. Is that going to be extended all the way
too? I haven't I did not see anything on the
the mobility plan for that to be extended. It is? Okay. But
Lane it's been it's a private street
it's always been a private street and it's privately
maintained so the city does not have any
vested interest in it right now. Okay okay. Commissioner
Smith. Thank you chair. So you're
just to go off what Commissioner Sanchez was saying a
second ago. The uh he said is Trailhead
there that's that's that's private or is that? No that's a
public street. Okay so the connectivity
the connectivity well so okay gotcha I know it's stubbed
out I thought you were saying that that
whole area down there is all private street. Oh no no no
just Lane right here. You said if you
want to go back one slide to the conceptual I'm not really
looking at the no yeah there you go
the I'm not really looking at the conceptual but the top
left so the the northwest plot above it
that's actually between the applicant and McKinney. What
that plot of land is that happen to be owned
by the applicant or is that just yeah? No this this is
actually um this is actually going to be
an apartment complex. It's almost done. Is it? Yeah. Okay I
guess I yeah right and right here is
the electrical transformer. Okay got it all right so there
's apartment complex in front of it.
Yep and and church right here. Church right there okay.
That works thank you. We got a little bit of
line but Commissioner Ellis. Thank you Chair real quick I
assume there's plans to extend Dutchess at
some point as well correct? Oh yes there that is on the
mobility plan to extend. Commissioner Beck.
Thank you Chair. So Lane isn't a part of this no project at
all I got the indication even by
his narrative that that was going to be so they're making a
separate means of egress only between
their development and McKinney and as an emergency. That's
correct. That's it okay so otherwise the only
way they can get in there is through Dutchess. That's
correct. Until Mockingbird comes through.
The applicant had a neighborhood meeting and at the
neighborhood meeting there was concern
expressed about the use of this area as a access way into
the site by all of the residents because
of the fact that it's going to go through the church
parking lot. Therefore it is going to be
EMS only. Say that again that last part. It's only going to
be EMS emergency medical service.
Okay thanks. Commissioner Sanchez. It was the same question
she had about extending Dutchess so over
the long period when Dutchess is extended they'll be able
to go either east or west. That's correct.
And that's that's basically where they'll be able to move
more traffic out of that area.
We're good. Okay as Julie mentioned we the criteria for
approval of a zoning case
is does the site request does the request conform to the
future land use plan and would there be
adequate provision of transportation water sewer
infrastructure. The site is actually
designated as moderate residential on the future land use
map. The intent of moderate residential
is to promote single family housing in small lots and it
encourages town homes with a density of
between four and twelve units per acre. As proposed the
site does meet that requirement and it does
comply with the future land use map. Here's a little bit of
my analysis. It's consistent with
the future land use element. The NRMU 12 district permits
12 dwelling units per acre max which is
also consistent with that element and the thing that the NR
MU 12 also does is provide a transition
between the single family duplexes to the south and the
more commercial and institutional uses
that are along McKinney street to the north.
The requested NRMU 12 district as I mentioned earlier is a
continuation of the NRMU 12 that is
located to the north of the site. The use is permitted in
the NRMU 12 district are consistent
with the uses that are permitted in the area today. Moder
ate density residential uses with some light
commercial. The applicant is only proposing town homes with
no commercial.
Um I just covered that. We sent out notices to uh by
certified mail to 52 property owners and uh
we received one response back which I handed out if I put
it at your place tonight
in favor which represents a half of one percent of the
property located in the 200 foot buffer.
Three signs were posted on the site at trailhead right here
and at lane.
Staff recommends approval of this request with the
condition that a mixed use overlay
is placed on the site. The mixed use overlay would limit
the use of the site to townhouse
development with a maximum density of six dwelling units
per acre and it would limit that proposed
northern access to emergency medical service only.
Commissioner Smith. Have you discussed those
recommendations with applicant? Um well we we did discuss
them yes. Okay so any applicant will be
there tonight to ask let us ask. Oh the applicant's right
here. Well I guess I know we're not going to
ask the applicant. I saw you look at him. I just uh don't
don't see it's how the sausages are made.
You can't can't let it all go away. We don't like to we don
't like to do this without okay we'll ask
this. We don't want to surprise the applicant. I'll ask the
applicant tonight to make sure that he's
okay with that the recommendations before me. Thank you.
That concludes my my presentation.
Commissioner Sanchez. I've got a question. Um when we
usually develop when there's a development
there's usually two exits if I remember correctly we
usually try to have two exits. Now one of them
is being designated as an emergency so in reality they only
have one exit. Well you need to remember
this is a concept plan. Okay okay. It's not it's not a full
blown site plan. Okay okay. Which we
will have a full blown site plan when he comes forward with
the SUP application. Okay okay okay.
I see what you're saying but I guess I my my idea is using
that to make sure that they have two
exits rather than even if it's a concept plan I would
imagine you you would consider your other
exit not just a concept plan that okay we're going to use
this in emergency when in reality we have
to have two primary exits not one. Yes yes. I do not see
any other questions. Thank you Cindy. Great.
With that the agenda for the public hearing has been
complete. Move on to work session reports.
The first one is from Haley about tree preservation and
landscape standards.
All right I've actually made it through the hard part with
tree preservation so very brief
presentation now with the landscape code update.
All right so I'm sure you're all familiar through the ADPs
and site plans that you've seen that
sub chapter 13 of the development code does have landscape
standards that dictate
new plantings and where those go on a site and what form
they should take.
So with the comprehensive landscape plan and kind of this
conservation code that we're hoping to
adopt with our new DDC we are rewriting those landscaping
standards to try to provide more
flexibility in how a site is designed. So what we've
proposed are new standards for compatibility
buffers right-of-way screening and parking lot landscaping
which are the chief elements
that our code dictates on a site. As part of this we are
looking to maintain the minimum landscape
area and tree canopy area requirements that are currently
in the code. As we shift to the new
DDC and adopt new zoning districts of course these numbers
would be adjusted to fit those new
districts. We are tweaking this a little bit to require
some biodiversity within the plantings
on a site. So for example if a site has to have 50% tree
canopy that would be broken down into
numerous plantings all over the site and we would encourage
that if you're planting over 10 trees to
meet that requirement that no more than 20% of them be from
the same genus so that there is
biodiversity within a site and if something such as the you
know ash borer beetle comes in it
wouldn't wipe out all of the landscaping on a site. So just
yes. Commissioner Sanchez. Yeah
when you say no 20% now is there is there anything asking
that a certain percent of those be native
trees or trees local to north central Texas? Currently
there's not anything that would require
that. There the site design criteria manual has a listing
of approved trees and the majority of the
trees on there are considered native. So those that's the
kind of the list that you could pick
from so just by nature of that we do have a requirement but
there's nothing spelled out in
the code. We could certainly add something like that if you
all were interested. When you say
native you're talking about Texas or are you talking about
north central Texas this area? I'm
not sure how that list was derived to know where those
those trees came from but that's that's
definitely something we could look into and if you all
would like us to add something like that to the
code we could. I mean we're always talking about um what do
you call it this is you know we're in
order to talk about uh excuse me cross timbers and and how
we want to mimic that ecosystem or
what what you know we're keeping areas uh protecting areas
because of those particular type trees
then we should also extend it to protect as many of those
trees as possible for this central for
cross timbers area at least that's my opinion. Okay yeah.
For clarification these tree tend trees
is that like landscape trees? Correct. We're not talking
about like the tree preservation of like
the massive oaks necessarily we're talking about like great
murals putting putting in for like
landscape type. Yeah not necessarily the preferred species
but certainly yeah new plantings on a side
within the development area. Okay I got you. Also different
from any required um mitigation tree
that would be. Correct in addition to mitigation trees. I
got you. So uh one of the key pieces of
our landscape code is the compatibility buffer between uses
um so our code currently has four
types of buffers type A, B, and C or I'm sorry A, B, C, and
D um and it dictates where those apply
and it has very strict requirements for how wide those buff
ers are how many trees and shrubs have
to be within those buffers. Um we we often get you know
concerns expressed by developers who
find that those requirements are just a little too strict
sometimes they need to be able to uh
to fluctuate what goes in that buffer space. So this table
is intended to help provide that
flexibility so we're maintaining the same um you know the
same spirit of what we have now in the
code where the uses are are separate or the the development
is separated by what type of use is
being developed and what use is adjoining and then if you
follow the table it would tell you
how many points you would have to attain within your buffer
. So we're trying to go to a more
flexible system where we say you need this number of points
here's a menu of options that can get
you to that number. Um and then in many cases we do still
specify a minimum width to ensure that
there's adequate spacing between say an industrial and a
single family use. Hayley? Correct. Uh
where the uses line up there's none so agriculture and
agricultural none single family single finger
none single family single family but multifamily multif
amily we put a buffer in for the same use
can you wouldn't I think logically it'd be none just like
the diagonal would suggest on this bingo
chart but um can you help why is there a required buffer
for the same use? I I believe that is an
error in the table um but we can look into that the intent
may have been if it's multifamily
versus townhome uh this was recommended by our consultant
Clarion with our code update um but I
I see your point there that that um seems a little counter
intuitive as to the agricultural the intent
there is to if someone's doing agriculture on their land to
not require them to buffer. I totally
understand that one I was more worried about the yeah
certainly we can I'll make a note of that and
and we can look into that a little bit more I'm I'm not
sure what the logic was there may just be a
an error on the table. Okay thanks. So uh speaking of the
the required points here is that kind of
menu of choices that um that you would have to to get you
to that required number of buffer points
um and like I said the intent here is to add more
flexibility so if if a wall suits your site better
than a you know a certain number of trees and shrubs you
know that that could be worked in as
well as providing options for different sizes of trees um
different you know spacing of trees and
things of that nature. Are there any questions on this
before we jump? All right um so just give you
an example um so a multifamily developing and joining
single family current code would be a type
b buffer which has to be a 10 foot wide area with five
trees and 30 shrubs for every 100 linear feet.
If you go back to that table and kind of play with the
options there are multiple ways to get to
the required number of points that we would like to see in
that buffer moving forward
so that could be a masonry wall it could be a double-sided
wood fence with trees or it could
be some combination of trees and shrubs similar to the
current code requirements so again just
the goal here is to provide more flexibility. Some of the
other changes we're looking for or
looking to make in the code are applying a similar point
system to all required site landscaping.
Again the goal being to provide flexibility but ensure that
a minimum quality of landscaping and
a minimum amount of landscaping is provided. So what we've
developed is a similar table to what
we just looked at for buffers. If you read through the
draft code you see that we require a minimum
of 30 points on every landscape plan so every site has to
meet this minimum and that minimum
is attained by selecting elements from different sections
on the menu board so there would be
right-of-way screening, parking lot landscaping, and then a
variety of other elements that could
be incorporated throughout the site wherever works for
their development. So looking at that table
the first section as I mentioned would be right-of-way
screening so the goal here is if you
have parking in front of your building you would choose two
of these options. If you don't have
front parking you just have say a drive aisle or something
in front of your building and that could
be reduced to one. So kind of keeping with the spirit of
our current code the options include berms,
combination of trees, and then shrubs as well as low walls
that could provide screening for the
parking lot. Commissioner Beck. Thank you. How high are
those berms? Three feet? It's it's they can
vary it's typically like a one to three side slope maximum
but it would be whatever height that's as
low as one foot high. Yeah some of them are very low but
okay yeah and typically you'll see the
the low berm with the landscaping shrubs or something like
that on top of it that provides
a little extra height there. The second component of the
table would be internal parking lot elements
so you see here where the current code has very minimal
standards for that only if you have a
large front parking lot does our current code require
internal landscaping. We have a minimum
percentage of parking lot landscaping but it doesn't
dictate that that should be spread throughout
to provide shade over the parking lot so we want to
encourage that concept but provide options and
how you can do that so it could be a combination of end
caps and internal landscape islands it
could be landscape medians between rows of parking allowing
the developer to choose whatever works
best for their site but still attain landscaping dispersed
throughout a parking lot. And then
finally the the other landscape elements that we're
proposing could be used on a site does
include some some things such as encouraging drought
tolerant plants, encouraging a minimum of
turf grass usage on a site. Some of the newer things that
we've added based on the committee
on the environment's recommendations were things such as
living walls and green roofs which we
currently don't have addressed in our code at all so when
someone proposes that it's kind of
hard to see how it would apply. So allowing that to be a
use and then the newest we've added is this
butterfly pollinator garden you may have noticed that Dent
on became a monarch city USA designation
so to try to encourage that we've worked that into the code
is one of the options.
Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. On the grass swells for
surface water is the grass
going to be drought resistant type grass or can it be Berm
uda? It could be any grass.
Certainly if you wanted us to encourage one way or the
other we could work something like that in.
Okay thanks. Finally the last piece of landscaping that we
're still working on
is open space requirements. Our code currently has these
for multifamily uses only so we're looking
into as we move forward and try to encourage cluster
development as an option minimum landscape
or minimum open space areas for that as well as maintaining
our minimum open space for multifamily
and kind of the overarching piece of this as I mentioned is
our end goal is a combined
conservation code that would include tree preservation
landscaping and ESA. So with
this draft landscape code we're also still working through
how to apply credits for tree preservation
and things like that and as well as credits for ESA and see
how all of these pieces work together.
So the end goal is not to be overly onerous but to
encourage a high quality development with
a multi-age tree canopy throughout the city. But that's all
I had for you. I promise this would be
the brief portion so unless there's any other questions we
can move on to the next item.
I think we're good. Thank you very much Haley. Thank you.
Next up is Julie with a presentation on the comprehensive
planning.
All right. Third time's a charm. That's right. All right I
also brought show and tell items.
We've got some old comp plans over here if anybody's
interested in looking at them
they're pretty funny to look at so but you have to give
them back. Okay so continuing on with our
planning boot camp. We're talking about comprehensive
planning tonight. So on our agenda is to first talk
about how the Texas Local Government Code treats
comprehensive planning. What is a comprehensive
plan? What does the planning literature say about
comprehensive plans? A brief history of comprehensive
planning in Denton and then we're gonna we're gonna get
into the Denton plan 2030. The parts of it,
how to read it, places to look for information. So here we
go. First we're going to talk about
the Texas Local Government Code. So chapter 213 outlines
municipal comprehensive plans.
They're intended to promote health safety and welfare. A
municipality can adopt a comprehensive
plan but they're not required to do so. The content and
design are fairly open-ended.
Cities can talk about land use, transportation, other
public facilities. They can organize it by
subject or by geographical area and it can be used to
coordinate and guide regulations.
A municipality may define the relationship between the
comprehensive plan and development
regulations and comprehensive plans are adopted and amended
by ordinance. So as we talked the last
time comprehensive plans are our comprehensive plan is
amended in the same way a zoning case
would be amended in that it would require the public
hearing and then a recommendation by
peonzy and approval by council. So what does the planning
literature say about comprehensive plans?
So a little bit of history. One of the the fathers of
planning, Daniel Burnham, he was a Chicago
architect. He was the one who designed the 1893 Colombian,
World Colombian Exposition. If you've
heard of the white city where the buildings were all white
and the waterways. So he designed that
and then he also did the first comprehensive plan. It was
the Chicago, the 1909 Chicago plan. So this
was his quote. It's a little cliched in the planning
profession but I love it. I think it's
inspiring. They don't know if he actually said it. They
think maybe one of his associates said it but
I'm gonna I'm gonna let him have it. So make no little
plans. There's Mr. Burnham himself. He had
quite the mustache and there is a photo of the white city.
So you might want to google it. There's
there's lots of photos on the internet. It's no longer
there and then here is one of the
plates from the 1909 plan of Chicago. It talked, it looked
at the park lands, it looked at
transportation. It actually was a plan that included the
central part of Chicago and extended out 60
miles. So it was it was quite something. It took years to
develop and he became the toast of the
town and it was internationally known after it was adopted
and then he died three years later. So
it killed him I guess but so so there it is. So generally
what is a comprehensive plan?
John Levy defines it as a guide to the development of a
community.
The citizen's guide to planning says it is a way for the
community to find where it has been,
where it is, and where it wants to go. The Texas APA has
six purposes of comprehensive planning
process. First to improve the physical environment of the
community as a setting for human activities.
Second to promote the public interest. So not just special
interests but the entire public.
Third to facilitate the democratic determination and
implementation of community policies on
physical development. Four to affect political and
technical coordination of community development.
Five to inject long-range considerations in the in the
determination of short-range actions.
And finally to prove to bring professional and technical
knowledge to bear in the making of
political decisions. So it's pretty good pretty good list
there. The citizen's guide to planning
outlines what the different parts are or the typical parts
are in a comprehensive plan. As
the Texas Local Government Code says it could really be
anything you want it to be but the
planning literature kind of has these general parts. Some
of them have them some of them don't
but we'll go over them briefly. First the vision. It's the
community's description of its future.
In the past the vision was just maybe a couple of sentences
. Our current comp plan is two pages
of vision. So they've they've run the gamut. Research and
analysis. There's several data
points that planners look at and that communities look at
when planning their comprehensive plans.
First of all to look at the population characteristics. Who
lives in our city?
How old are they? Or what is what are their education level
? What how much money do people
make? Where do they live? And then how do those
demographics affect how do they relate to the
built environment particularly the housing market? That's
that's important. And then economic trends.
You know how does the internet affect retail development
and where should retail go? So all
of those elements can go into a comprehensive plan. Growth
forecasts. Where where where do we
think we're going to grow and and and how many?
Environmental analysis. Where are natural features?
Public facilities and infrastructure. Where are our fire
stations and our police stations in our
schools? And if we grow the way we think we're going to
grow how many will we need and where
should we put them? Land use capacity. How much undeveloped
land do we have and how many people
do we think are going to live in it? Community character
analysis. These are the intangibles.
When we think of Denton we think of arts and culture, music
, the square, those intangibles
that define our community. And the fiscal analysis. What
are the implications of new growth?
If we plan a community 10 miles away from the city center
what will it cost to maintain the roads to
get there and the water and the sewer? So all of those
factors come into play. Goals, objectives,
and policies are discussed in comprehensive plans. We they
're all these three elements are typically
in comprehensive plans but they name them different things
and in fact our plan names it something
different. But but generally the goals. What is the desired
end state? Where do we want to go?
What what do we want to be? Objectives. What are the
benchmarks? How do we know we're getting there?
And then the policies. What what action items do we have to
take to get to our goal?
All comprehensive well not all comprehensive plans but most
comprehensive plans we see today have
lots of maps and those are my favorite parts. Particularly
our future land use map. And then
implementation and monitoring. Other factors to consider in
comp plans typically or I'm sorry
comprehensive plans are a policy document. They they are
different than the zoning code. The
zoning code is our regulations. Our comp plan is our policy
document that that informs our zoning
code. Typically there's a 20 year horizon. We we plan 20
years out but they should be updated
every five years. Plan effects on the ground change and you
want to continually update it.
Planning documents and I'm going to say this later but
planning the comprehensive planning is
is not only a document it's not only a product it is a
process and it's a continuous process.
A brief history of comprehensive planning in Denton this is
where it's going to get fun.
So um in doing a little bit of research I don't know if
this is a comprehensive list of
comprehensive plans but it's what I could find. So the
first one I found for the city of Denton was
in 1960 and it's a pretty robust plan. Then there was
another one in 1974. The 1999 plan was was
what we used when I came to the city of Denton and then in
2015 we adopted the Denton plan 2030.
So in 1960 comprehensive plans are really good time caps
ules of the zeitgeist of an area. They
really talk about like how people feel about themselves and
where they want to be so they're
fascinating. This is a quote from the plan. "If some method
of measuring intellectual level of
a city were known Denton would be listed among the leaders
in the nation." I love that. So um
so that is the basis of that plan. So this is their land
use plan. As you could see Denton was
a lot smaller in 1960. There wasn't as much development on
the south side of town and certainly
the preserve wasn't there. The the um the zoning ordinance
that followed that comprehensive plan
was in 1963 and um and it it kind of followed the the the
planning principles of the day. We we had
fair very few zoning districts and they were um they weren
't mixed use districts. They were
pretty Euclidean and we'll talk about that in our next um
our next boot camp session is uh they
really separated a lot of the uses. They had a thoroughfare
plan too. This is pretty interesting.
Denton had it one had a planned inner loop and it was right
here and then here was the proposed
outer loop. 35W wasn't there and the plan talks about it is
at the southern end of the brand new
I-35. So um I think the highway the federal highway was in
1956 am I right? The that act.
So I would imagine that 35 was was just about finished then
. So um and then here there was a
1960 downtown plan and this is so cool. They they proposed
a pedestrian um mall right here. So this
was going to be the pedestrian loop. Um they uh so here's
City Hall West if y'all if y'all are
familiar with that. This seems to be the city buildings um
McKinney was going to dead in here.
I believe this is the inner loop from what I can tell and
so McKinney was going to dead in here.
There's going to be all the city offices. There's going to
be the pedestrian center.
They they advocated for a facelift of the architecture.
They felt that the buildings
were too drab so they thought they should be modernized. So
just looking at some of those
buildings on the square that got the facelift in the 60s
you kind of see what they were
talking about. They really wanted those modern facades.
And um City Hall West according to that plan did not have
air conditioning. So we could be having
these meetings in an air conditioned environment. So
luckily they did update some of it.
The 1974 plan didn't have as many maps but I did want to
pull a couple of the goals.
I like the land use goal that wanted to provide adequate
but not excessive amounts of all types
of land for community needs. They they talked about the
environment but they talked about they
they defined it a little differently than we define it now.
They talk about plan protect and
preserve the natural and man-made environment. So they
defined it a little differently.
At that time they were still talking about affordable
housing. So some of those deal issues
that we deal with today were still were still things were
things that we dealt with even back
then. And and one phrase that I really liked in this one it
talks about maintaining constant
surveillance of different of different things. It's uh.
Isn't that funny like that's an odd phrase to use but that
's what they used.
Once again Zeitgeist. Um and then 1999 uh we updated the
plan. The plan won an award. It was
it was um it it and there's a copy of it over there if you
want to flip through it.
It was adopted in December on December 7th of 1999. It's
actually the basis of our current
Denton Development Code. So um where we had those those
just few zoning districts in 1963. We had
the residential. We had apartment. We had business and we
had industrial. Um that that new code
brought in mixed use districts and we talked about
development scale and neighborhood scale
versus regional scale and you can see that reflected in our
current code. So so this plan
really informed our code that we see today. This was the
land use plan by the way. I can you can
see that it's um you know it's still it's still pretty
compact in in in Denton. Denton didn't
pushing those boundaries ever ever more every year. So now
let's look at the current comprehensive
plan that we use. So at a glance uh the the update was
initiated in 2012 and it was an update of that
1999 plan. It was developed in five phases. They had
significant community involvement throughout.
There were three guiding groups. The Citizens Advisory
Committee, Technical Advisory Committee,
Denton and then um Denton 2030. Then plan 2030 Ambassadors.
Um they also did surveys. They had
kickoff meetings. Um they did uh outreach to stakeholders.
So there they they really worked
on a robust um public outreach. It was adopted by ordinance
in February of 2015 and just to give you
a little um a little taste of of their projections. They
they uh projected that the population in
Denton would increase to over 200,000 people by 2030. So
that that's a pretty substantial increase.
So we've talked about the planning literature and what the
what the standards are for comprehensive
plans. But now let's talk about how to read our plan. So
our community vision statement. Before I
say that, does everyone here have a copy of the
comprehensive plan? If you do not, we can get you
one. Okay. How many have read the vision statement? All
right. Good. If you haven't, if you haven't
had an opportunity yet, it's on pages 14 and 15 of of the
um comprehensive plan. The comprehensive
plan also includes 10 elements. Those are chapters and
those include things like the framework of the
plan, the land use, housing, the mobility, infrastructure.
So it it includes a lot of
elements as it comes to to what the city is and what what
we want it to be. Um each element
contains some of those some of those points that we talked
about earlier. The research and analysis,
which are the basis for the conclusions. And then those
goals, it has goals, policies, and actions.
But those are those three elements we talked about earlier.
The goals, objectives, and
policies. So we call them goals, policies, and actions. And
then earlier in the presentation,
I called them goals, objectives, and policies. So they do
the same thing. It also includes maps like
the preferred growth map, existing land uses, future land
use map. So let's talk about the vision
first. So the vision statement, it was the result of all of
that community outreach that I talked
about. The surveys, the the meetings, the discussions with
citizens, with policy makers, with with
political leaders. And it's organized around four strategic
directions, which include the character
of Denton, our people, institutions, and government, the
strength of the economy, and sound growth.
Now we'll take at this is just a sample of of a chapter.
What we'll talk about are the parts of
the chapter. And this so this can go throughout the plan.
As you read through it, you can you can
pull out these these parts. So you kind of give you a
roadmap to read it. So first of all, you
know what chapter you're in, because it it talks about it
here. So we're going to be looking at
element two, which is land use. At the beginning of every
chapter in this blue box will be the
parts of the vision statement that are are reflected in the
chapter. So in the land use
chapter, of course, that those parts that the sound growth
that that really is where that vision
statement comes into play. There's research and analysis,
there's tables and graphs throughout
the the plan, which which give valuable information and
also give you get wants to give you give you
that supporting evidence for the conclusions. The goals are
in the dark blue boxes. The plan
states that they set a general direction and ideal future
long range and comprehensive in nature
and used to describe the desired result or outcome.
policies are in the dark or in the bold.
And they are a specific statement guiding decision makers a
commitment to a particular course of
action. They describe context and rationale of a desired
outcome, and they're more specific than
the goals. And then finally, the action statements are then
underneath the policy statements.
And those are those are specific steps to achieve those
policy goals.
So so as you're looking through through the comp plan, it
flows first from the vision statement
that sets the tone for every everything that we want to do
within our community. Our goals relate
to that vision statement in some capacity. And on this
particular goal, it's to promote development,
which enhances community character and functionality. The
policies
support the goals in this one, it's to set a high standard
of quality design,
equality in the design in the public realm to enhance the
appearance and functionality.
And then finally, those action items enhance design
standards pertaining to aesthetics and
complete streets for future construction of public rights
of way and thoroughfares.
So you can find this trail throughout our comprehensive
plan in every element.
One one part of the comp plan we look at a lot is the
future land use map. But I thought we'd talk
about how it was created because it didn't just spring from
from nowhere, there was actually a
process to create it. And it is the basis for the land use
element for what we do.
It was developed from public input, and it was derived from
the preferred growth concept. So
just to if you look on page 20 of your comprehensive plan,
within part of the public outreach,
they had they had alternative growth scenarios. One being
if we did nothing, if we just kept going
as usual, one if we only grew on the corridors, another if
we grew at the centers, and then if
we grew compactly. So as part of the public outreach, the
public provided feedback on these
on these gross scenarios. Richard and I were talking about
it was interesting about what the
land use assumptions were back in 2012. When this first
started, was that the city was going to grow
toward ropes and ranch, it was going to grow toward the
southwest. And and really, that's not
what we've seen. We've seen it really growing to the
northeast and the east. So so even those
assumptions that we used back then are have have changed.
So so the this future land use map was
derived from the preferred growth concept, which was based
upon these alternative growth scenarios,
the existing conditions, capacity studies, you know, where
we had capacity to grow,
community priorities, including things like walkability and
trails that we wanted a mix
of uses that we wanted jobs close to home, our community
character, and then fiscal impact
analysis, you know, compact growth is more fiscally sound
because you have fewer roads and water and
sewer to maintain. So so this is this is the future land
use map that was created as as result of all
of that input. I know we talk about a lot, we don't often
see the entire future land use map.
We usually just look at it in a more zoomed in point. But
it's it's a it's a good exercise to
kind of look at it because it really does reflect what that
vision is of the city.
Other items to keep in mind regarding comprehensive
planning and our plan.
The plan is comprehensive. So it is easy to get done all
vision on that future land use map that
is is really what we look at most on a day to day basis.
But other goals, policies and actions can
provide us direction. And it's in particularly when we're
talking about design design items. So
for instance, on page 183, it talks about it talks about to
encourage new development to create
pedestrian and bicycle friendly places. That's not
necessarily a policy that we talk about when
we're talking about straight zoning. But when you're
talking about an SUP or an ADP, that
certainly comes into play. So that's really vital
information that we shouldn't ignore.
And you know, Richard and I were talking about this. And
when he first came, he got a copy of
the comp plan, and he read through it, and he marked it up.
And he teased out those policy
directives, he teased out all that text, because that does,
it does give context as to what we're
doing. So it's important to, to look throughout to look at
the plan as a whole and not just that
future land use map. As I said before, comprehensive
planning is as much a process as it is a product.
Although we have these this document, we want to continue
the process. And comp plans should be
updated on a fairly regular basis. And just in terms of
what we've seen in the in the city,
Karen in our office did a land use analysis and rezoning
cases from October 2016 to 2018
could result top line if they if they developed at their
maximum density with over 1400,
or 14,000 new dwelling units within the city of Denton. But
they're not always in the areas
that we anticipated the growth in terms of that, those
those future growth scenarios. So,
so how do we address that? How do we address when the when
the future land use map is not reflecting
the the direction in which growth is going within the city
of Denton? So and that's a question we'll
we'll have to answer. Texas Local Government codes chapter
211 says that zoning regulations
must be adopted in accordance with the comprehensive plan.
So how does that factor into that when we're
seeing a lot of growth in areas we didn't anticipate and
faster than we anticipated?
Now how do how do we deal with that with our comprehensive
plan? Julie, not that it applies
to us. But if a comprehensive plan is optional, how does
that code apply universally?
If you adopt one, your zoning should follow your comp plan.
If you don't adopt a comp plan,
then free for all. Yep, whatever you want.
Did you say Houston? So and Richard, I don't know if you
want to add anything. No, one thing I just
wanted to add because we've we've had this conversation as
part of the the development code
review committee. When we do have those inconsistencies
with the with the rezone,
you know, with the zoning and the land use. And where it
gets particularly challenging is
when we have a rural designation on the land use plan, you
know, that's looked at it, you know,
it's being planned at a density of one unit per five acres.
Right. So that's point what point two
units per per acre. And then we're, you know, we're rez
oning those parcels, you know, four units an
acre or six units an acre, which is a substantial increase.
And so luckily, what we've done lately,
as we're looking at at least some of these city initiated
traffic studies, is still look at,
you know, use that as the guide, but also step it back
because we do have instances where
there is that inconsistency. And so I think what's happened
previously is, of course,
everyone goes to the comp plan, because that's supposed to
be your right, your guiding map.
But the problem is, we have those we have those inconsisten
cies. And so part of the discussion
that we had is should we have those or should should the
land use be consistent with the zoning
prior? Should the land use change prior to the zoning? I
know there are some cities in the
Metroplex that require it. I think the example that we got
as part of that meeting from from
the outside our outside Land Use Council, she had
referenced, I guess, a project she was involved
with in Prosper, where they wanted to change the zoning on
a parcel. However, the land use had it
as rural. So prior to the, I guess it's a town, not the
cities prior to the town, reviewing that
rezoning application, they required them to change the land
use plan and go and go through
that process. And so I think that's just something to
consider as we as we're, you know, thinking
about all of this, as well as as how the new DDC functions,
but again, also looking at this,
because once once we move forward with that DDC, this will
be right on its right on its heels,
looking at sort of updating that, particularly the map, but
also even some of the policies.
Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Chair. So Richard and Julie
as well, whenever we get cases that are
like that, that is a I mean, I can't remember any off top
my head. So I know they don't come often.
But I think there's one I can think of specifically that
was a part of the razor plot that was that
was that was right there off Oak and 35 E and it was rez
oning to build student housing, to build
multifamily. I could see that in 2012, there could be a
citizen who's involved in that in the
comprehensive planning for the 2030 plan to see, well, that
's all farmland, it's going to be
farmland, there's not really a whole lot of thought that
needs to be worried about multifamily going
there. But then we rezone it. And it's, I guess the last
time I saw I think we think we did the
final plot already on it, it's built out there. You know,
the concerns that are brought up of hey,
this was thought of, and then the 30 plan, this was a rural
district, this is a rural area.
And we're going from drastic change and shift of use. I
know that's brought up to say, this is not
consistent with the didn't 2030 plan, it goes through, we
have our presentations, because I've
sat through enough of those. But I'd almost like to
encourage as a commissioner to you, Julie,
the rest of the planning staff of really making that a very
strong point of saying that, no, no,
not only is this not consistent, this is really not
consistent. So do realize what you as a planning
and zoning commission are about to do is going against
something that we voted on, you know,
three years ago, really, an idea that we put forth, because
we sometimes may say, well,
this seems like a good development, a good thing. And
really, it's kind of goes back to I think what
Andrew was asking, which was, how do we make sure that we
don't, we as a commission, don't don't
push the city to growing too fast, because cities can grow
too fast, i.e. Houston, it can happen that
way. And, and I think I think getting that getting almost
that that that warning light that red flag
saying, it's not that it's an inconsistent, you know, some
mixed use and now it's residential
or whatever else we're resigning it to, it's really
inconsistent, just to really make sure
it's being stressed to us, we know it's a big decision we
're about to make. I'll get off my
soapbox now. Yeah, supernata. Thanks. I just have a
question on this. So when we talk about comprehensive
planning, and everything and looking at the things that
have come through in the last, you know, a
couple of years, we see about, you know, you know, for over
14,000 units possibly available. Yet one
of the things that's becoming crisis in Denton is
affordable housing. You know, increasingly, we have
less housing that's available to a broad cross section of
people. What, what is the city, what
is it, you know, what do you what is, I guess, the approach
in ensuring that as we grow, we create
an environment in which we have a varied community that can
live here and contribute to this.
Well, we have a chapter for that. In our, in our
comprehensive plan, in element seven talks about
our housing policy and and and the the mix of housing that
we need and then to make sure that
not only we have the right mix, but that it's maintained
and that we, you know, that and that
our neighborhoods have good that we're any new
neighborhoods are, you know, good quality. So
you may want to take a look at that. I don't know if
Richard wants to add to that. You know,
it's a big discussion in the DCRC as well. No, and I think
it just goes back to that,
just not looking at the map in one chapter, really pulling
out. And as we start to analyze this and
talk about the, you know, is it consistent with the plan?
Really looking at at the entire plan
and how how it's either consistent or inconsistent, because
there are there are a lot of other elements,
particularly when we get into into utilities and level of
service that that that starts to
identify that and that's really what we what we should and
how we should be using the plan, not
just just one singular element, particularly particularly.
It's different when there's a
consistency. But when we have that that true inconsistency,
I think that's where we really
need to be a little bit more, you know, resourceful and
staff and look at look at that whole that whole
the whole plan, every element related to that. So I have a
question that kind of piggybacks
Commissioner Smith and Pernetta. We do a whole lot of
zoning on the PNZ. We don't do a whole
lot of planning, typically, just like the tasks that we're
challenged with. It's more zoning than
than planning. In the past, the two past comprehensive
plans, there has been planning done.
So I'm curious to know, in both iterations, it seems like
the plan was or the forecast was to
have growth to the southeast of town. Now it's in the
northeast. Was there a disconnect in our
our enforcement of the planning? Or is that a bad forecast?
But it seems like if we planned in two
comprehensive plans, that the growth would be southwest,
don't we have some control over that
to Commissioner Smith's point? Like what I don't want to
ramble, but did we not encourage that? Or
what happened to not know that where we planned growth to
be, it's not happening? I think it's a
I think it's a couple of things. I think part of it is, you
know, a lot of the data that was used
when and I'm not faulting it, it's just that point in time
when we grab that data, and we came out of
the recession. So the growth that we're having now, I don't
think was ever anticipated back in
2014. And so we had ropes and ranch and then there was a we
had the one MPC I can't think of.
Hunter? Is it Hunter Ranch? So we had some very large appro
vals in that area. And so I think that's
where it just kind of gravitated there, but also not not
expecting the amount of growth that that
that we're seeing. I mean, just a mere fact of 14, you know
, the addition of 14,000 units just
for rezoning, not saying they're going to be built over
what was it? 2016? I mean, that is
it's mind blowing, really. And just the amount of projects
that we have ongoing,
in addition to properties and annexing in. And so that's
where it's kind of, hey, let's,
let's make sure we're bringing as we bring this stuff
forward. We're really, we're really analyzing
this. Yeah. So I don't know if that answered the it
certainly does. And I've brought it up before.
And on other cases about how much do we look at the flume
and stand by it. And it seems like
conversations in the past couple years, it has been more of
, I mean, it's pretty close to flume.
But to Commissioner Smith's point, should it be hard and
fast, like there was a vote, there was
an approval, this is supposed to be low density, let's let
's keep it rural or low density. And so
that'd be my only thought throughout there. I got to piggy
back off. Okay, Commissioner Smith.
Just I didn't know if possibly there's a way for us to, as
we are adding 14,000 dwellings, you know,
14,000 units could sorry, could. And there was, we'll see,
we'll go from there.
Every two years building in some sort of parameter to just
a benchmark, it doesn't seem like it's
that hard to do just, but benchmarking, we project that by,
I think it was, you know,
they said project by 2030, we're gonna have, we're gonna be
a population of 207,000 and change.
But in the last two years, we've had four, we could add
four, we've rezoned,
Larry, don't punch me. We could add 14,000 new units, by
the way, we rezoned it. Are we outpacing
what their projection is? Because what I would hate to do
as a planning and zoning commission,
because we see it on such a microscopic level of does this
make sense where it is now? Yeah,
it's a little bit outside of the future land use map, but
you know what? Seems like a good project.
It's applicant seems like a nice guy. It's something we
need. We need to get in there. Yeah,
let's do it. But it's never, it's never the big things that
kill you. It's the small hole in your
boat that slowly drowns you and sinks you in your middle of
the lake. And so I'd hate to be like,
project by project, we start to outpace what our projected
growth is. And then we
have grown way too fast from what we projected or what we
expected to. And we look back on it and
we have a congested city and our utilities are, and it's
not even the enjoyment of living, it's
our utilities can't handle it. Our infrastructure hasn't
caught up to it because our infrastructure
and utilities are based off a 2030 plan. But the planning
and zoning is in here looking at it and
outpacing it by 30, 40%. That makes sense? It'd be nice to
be able to get that benchmarking. So
we know that we're not getting, and I'd hate to, once again
, I have a soapbox, but I hate to get
to the point where we're having to tell applicants, we're
going to have to turn you down because we
already approved somebody three weeks ago for something
that could be really pushing us or
pushing our dwellings. We should look at it on a case by
case basis, but we as a planning and zoning
commission need to be more abreast about this is, this
could be pushing us faster growth than we need
to go as a city because we're not truly able to settle into
what we are. Sorry. Do you need a
response or can we keep going? No, I don't need a response.
I could, I could, Commissioner Sanchez.
Commissioner Sanchez, you're up. I was just, I look at the
comprehensive plan as a road map
that doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, you're
visiting every five years because you know
there's things happening and things are changing and I don
't see it as, you know, written in stone.
You want to follow it as close as you can, but in the long
term you have to be, that's why you go
back to it every five years and maybe even every two years.
I think at one time they said when we
talked about the, you can't visit it as often as two years
or something like that. It depends on
the growth or what's happening in the city and I think that
's the important thing is that it's,
to me, it's a document that gives you direction but you don
't hold it as a, you know, it's not
written in stone. So based on what's going on in the city
then you have to look at it and say okay
this is, this is where the growth is going. This is where
we have to look at it and not just say
well this is where we should have grown and so we're going
to force it this way because you're not,
we're not going to force it. The developers and the people,
the citizens are the ones that actually,
you know, where they want to build is, so we have to take
that into, if we become so rigid that this
is what the comprehensive plan is and we don't adjust then
we're going to find ourselves in a
lot of trouble. I think we have to, it's something, it's a
live document to me. It has to be looked at
on a regular basis based on what's happening at that point
and if you don't look at it constantly
you're, you're up a creek. Just, I'm going to interject
real fast so I know two commissioners
are here. Commissioner Sanchez, I think at some point we as
commission do need to force the issue.
I understand it's a living document and, but at some point
there were people before us that said
this is the way we feel our city needs to go and we can't
just override that and throw that out. We
can't say yeah but a lot of developers wanting to build
here so let's just go do that in stark
contrast to what intelligent thoughtful people have put
forth to begin with. So I think there
is an ongoing conversation and it could be living but I
think we're charged here to more often than
not force what the city has has put forth as their plan.
And I agree but the thing is that decision
was made five, ten years ago. Things have changed and we
have to be realized that things change
and, and that's why I think it's a living document. You
have to be looking at it constantly
because decisions that were made just like they made fight
made that decision that all the growth
is going to be on the south side and all of a sudden you
have it on the north side.
People had no clue what was going on so I mean they had a
clue but it wasn't it wasn't what they
thought it was going to happen. So now you have to readjust
and say this is what's happening out there
it's growing outside there's a lot of growth outside the
loop something that wasn't probably
thought of and now we have to readjust and that's what
happens is as a city grows yes we you have
certain things going on but at the same it's but at the
same you have to adjust and I think
I think you can't be I guess and the reason I say I'm in
the middle of building some apartments
and I've had to make some changes hey these were my plans
when I started but then all of a sudden
we get here and we say okay I got to make these adjustments
these adjustments these adjustments
or it's not going to work and I think one tool that the
city has used we don't use it often but
it is but it can be helpful is is things like small area
plans as as an appendix to the
comprehensive plans to allow you to look more deeply at
specific areas to determine determine
you know what the vision you know a smaller vision for a
very localized area to take in the
benchmarking and and and and and the the surrounding
property owners and and and the community leaders
and how that's going to move in that direction so I think I
think we could use all of these tools
to help us make really good decisions within the city I'm
just going to point out also that our
code already has a procedure for making amendments to the
comprehensive plan if needed
it kind of contains an internal governor to keep it from
being abused I contemplates that that
you know like say if a property owner initiates a plan
amendment that it would be submitted 90
days prior to the first meeting of pnz in January April
July or October and so I think kind of the
intent of that is to keep it from being an ad hoc gee this
is inconsistent with the future land use
map let's let's quick amend it and run that simultaneously
with a zoning amendment
I I think that the intent here is to try to give some
legitimacy because I think uh Commissioner
Sanchez is absolutely right you know if if five years is an
average if you're a fast growing city
it might be more often than five years if you're a slow
growing landlocked city then it may be
that that could drag out even further but uh you know as an
interim measure there is an
there is an option to do that and we have done that before
where necessary and I know that
somebody mentioned uh master plan communities before I know
that at least in a previous
comprehensive plan we inserted a provision in there that
said that because a master plan really
is master planned it's like a mini comprehensive plan in
and of itself and in in providing a variety
of different uses that uh that that we will allow for that
as as as part of our comprehensive plan
uh great points jerry per now you've been waiting kusher um
yeah so uh kind of uh along the lines of
kind of combining both of what you guys said you know the
point was raised at the uh you know
the last plan saw greater you know uh growth out heading
towards ropes and ranch and why didn't
that happen and the first thing in my mind was uh because
of 35 and the way it um basically clogs
if you ever want to go to Dallas from there I wouldn't want
to live that far out um I I know
that we have some expansion on 35 uh you know which may
provide a little bit of relief before
bucky's gets here um but when it comes to the growth that
we're going to see 200 000 people and
everything and and I still see just 35 35 and everything um
how much of this plan uh accommodates
for you know high flow arteries to kind of help people get
in and out and and make dent in a place
that you know people don't get stuck in well in a mobility
element it talks about um multimodal
transportation so probably not going to out you're never
going to build enough roads to not have
traffic jams so what you have to do is ensure that there's
multimodal and that and that there's a
mix of uses and so you look at land use um in addition to
roads land use can drive um can drive
trips vehicle trips so you so part of the plan and part of
our comprehensive development code is
looking at a mix of uses and and um and the community said
they wanted to live near jobs and
have have um have more compact growth so but yes the growth
is coming and then what road where are
those roads and where are they where are they going to go
and how are they going to move people around
our comprehensive plan doesn't is not a full thoroughfare
plan um I know our engineering
department and I think we're going to have them come talk
to you guys soon about the planning
they're doing and in fact um they're and Richard may want
to chime in here they're actually looking
at some studies for very specific areas within the city
particularly on the northeast and then also
in I believe the Ryan road area because of so many
developments coming in how are they going to move
people through so they're they're they're trying to get
ahead of that um it's it's not really
addressed fully in this but with those smaller plans and
the more local plans hopefully um we
can address some of those mobility issues. Commissioner
Smith. Thank you chair and to
you know to commissioner Sanchez's point plans change you
know you don't uh I'm I'm in the
business world so you know any any business which should
have a five-year vision a five-year plan
put ahead of them if not longer but publicly traded
companies get bought up in mergers and
acquisitions all the time no one ever plans for those
things and so you're right big things happen
we can't predict that two years from now there might be
another economic recession and if that
happens our 2030 plan can be easily thrown out the window
because every developer who went through and
rezoned for those 14,000 units could say well I just went
bankrupt or I'm not building right now
because it doesn't economically make sense for me so you're
right the plan has to be nimble it has
to be living because it has to pivot but at the same time
there are a lot of big projects in the
city they get started and I'm not talking just to you
commissioner Sanchez but the the the city
seems like from what we've seen in planning and zoning is
that the city comes in and says you know
we're we're basing a lot of our 20 you know our our ideas
for uh development of infrastructure
development of utilities where we're diverting our tax our
taxpayers money to be able to grow
is based off the 2030 plan and so it's it's scary because
there's these big long-term projects that
are dependent upon this document that should be living but
this is based off a static one point
in time idea plan and so it's like if we don't if we almost
don't allow for both the long-term
projects and the plan itself to both be nimble enough to be
moved we could get to the end where
it's like well we were able to move around as a commission
we were able to move around as a city
council but the long-term plans and the funding and the
money where that was all directed whenever
was and and it could be a little bit scary of a deal but I
just really wish you could push and
encourage you know after the after the ddc update gets done
that seeing a comprehensive plan in the
future that has some sort of benchmarking provision in
there I know jerry just mentioned that we can
make edits to it within the code but some sort of you know
some macro data some things like
population growth dwelling growth city size some of these
things that we can have as macro data
and having two-year benchmarking that that not necessarily
we're updating the comprehensive plan
but planning and zoning and all the important commissions
are being updated to say we're out
pacing in these areas we're under pacing in these areas and
so just because we don't want to get 10
years down the road and be looking at so we never did
development in that area why well the 2030
plan said that we were going to be developing in the
southwest but really you're the planning and
zoning you guys developed it all in the northeast because
plans came forward people had money and
it's been it you know we we sort of deviated away from the
future land use map it's like well I
wish we would have known who wouldn't have done that so one
thing I just wanted to add sort of the
kind of a a preview what I've had Karen start to do is
start to try to assemble these numbers of
what exactly what are we doing and how do we look at this
comprehensively and so what we've talked
about is is putting out what I was calling it dentin by the
numbers so almost exactly what what
you're what you're speaking about is how many how many re
zonings have have we've approved during
this period of time of the projects that were approved what
's been built sort of what's what's
kind of the state of the city in in in that regard and so
maybe that's something that then we can
just bring here also quarterly discuss but then put in as
part of a work program is you know maybe
it's just an annual you know maybe we start off at annual
or even six months of hey let's take a look
at here's the trends that we've seen and at least the
projects that where things are moving
let's take a look let's do our annual review of the comp
plan and what and what what makes sense
at least from from a future future land use map perspective
yeah no no no marathon runner ever runs
the race and doesn't know what their average mile time is
that makes sense you know if we're
saying i want to run i want 26 mile marathon i want to do
it in two and a half hours which i don't
think i'd make it 2.6 miles in 26 in two hours but whatever
so you want to run this 26 mile race but
you know what every single mile your time should be that's
really important benchmarking and so
even coming back saying didn't buy the numbers based off
the 2030 plan we should be trending
in these ways this year our trend was above or below or out
of whack in these areas just so we
get a pulse because otherwise we're just taking on a case-
by-case basis and that's that can be
it gives it lets us be nimble but also could be really
dangerous so commissioner cole yeah some
of this you know like 2006 southwest didn't was supposed to
be developed but guess what happened
the recession so all these moving parts that's why i like
the living breathing part of this is
because you don't know when the next one's going to be you
know so what restricts west of 35
development where it all happened northeast well there's no
services infrastructure west of 35
there's no sewer robson ranch has their own sewer system
you know there's there's no sewer
so there's not going to be any growth so where did it all
have to go i had to go northeast
because also all the developers out southwest got locked
out in the recession i guess except
he would you know but i'm sure you know we don't know when
they're going to be ready to go but i'm
sure that's that's not far i'm sure hunter ranch you know
first phase is not that far away but what
happens in two years if the we have another recession you
know i mean that's because if 2006
seven eight hadn't happened southwest didn't probably be
right now developed somewhat you know
but there's all these unforeseen circumstances that happen
and conditions you know like i said
there's you know there's just the infrastructure doesn't
exist out there so but it does up to the
east but you know i do like revisiting it ever so often
because you don't know what's coming around
the corner you know because two years can be another
recession we don't know that you know
and that's going to scramble everything
julie i don't know if your presentation was done but we
went you were good awesome i have one more
all right i don't have any cool further reading or blogs or
podcasts for you but my homework is
to read your debt and plan 2030 um you'll have some great
questions particular questions about
mobility and affordable housing if you'll have any other
questions um boot camp topics that you
want to go over in detail let us know and i'll i'm just i'm
just throwing them in there so um feel
free and then i could come back with a more robust
presentation regarding those questions
julie thank you so much presentation was awesome and thanks
for city staff getting us in time to
let us talk and breathe and not feel rushed so uh i
appreciate everyone being here early and
letting us do that tonight uh the last thing we have is the
october 24th uh planning zoning
commission is going to be a full schedule it looks like
with uh potentially a lot on the agenda
and for those who don't know the planning zoning commission
uh members also serve on the capital
improvements advisory committee that meets twice a year and
we need to have a meeting so we need
to talk about start time for the work session because we
also have ps wanting to give a traffic
transportation update so richard right now correctly wrong
we're going to try to start at 4 30 but we're
needing to see if four clocks possible for the ciac meeting
correct and then also we have we have
i think right now um 11 applications uh that would be under
review um some of those are on on consent
um but there is there is some there are some heavy lifting
items uh with respect to some uh some of
the rezoning's that are that are coming forward and sups on
that on that agenda and so could start at
three um but given that we we have to have that capital
improvements advisory committee meeting
does it make sense to move the discussion on traffic to the
note to the first meeting in
november so that that gives a little bit more time
because i know we've been talking about it and i've i just
didn't want to not have it on there and
then you guys you know i just wanted to bring it bring it
to everyone's attention yeah kishorel's
thank you chair yeah i i'd be for moving it because we've
waited a long time for that discussion
it's going to end up being seven minutes long if that with
an agenda like like what we have ahead
of us so i think to be a worthy true work session
discussion i think we need to move it so for for
just helping get this done by a show of hands can everyone
raise their hand if they're okay with
pushing the transportation meeting from 1024 on the nove
mber schedule is everyone okay with that
pushing transportation update that was on the 24th to the
first meeting in november if you're
okay with that if you could raise your hand if not in nove
mber first meeting in november
14th i'm good with 14 so are we okay so we'll push
transportation to the next meeting and then
with the ciac is it possible for p and z to start our
meeting at four o'clock on the 24th
so i'm getting nods four o'clock is doable fine with me
would buy me too so if we can do it for
perfect uh does that work on that item yep perfect uh so
with that we will close the
work session at 6 14 we'll meet in council chambers at 6 30
good evening and welcome to the planning zoning commission
for october 10th 2018 we will start
the meeting at 6 36 first order of business is to stand and
give a pledge of allegiance to the u.s.
and texas flag
one nation
texas one state
the next item on the agenda will be consider approval of
the planning and zoning minutes i
open the floor to discussion or motion commissioner prun
etta
i'd like to request an adjustment to the meeting minutes on
uh page six with regard to item five b
my vote was actually an i and it's listed as a recused
thank you for the notation is there any discussion or
motion
commissioner smith motion approved with uh commissioner pr
unettas uh edits thank you
commissioner beck second we have a first and a second any
other discussion we'll call for a
vote on the board
motion passes seven zero that'll move us directly into our
public hearings as a point of order
item 3a s 18-008 b has been postponed the staff is working
through some issues that have come up
and so that will be reposted and brought before the p and z
at a date in the future
continuing on we'll move to item 3b item is z 18-0014
we can call upon julie for presentation i'll open the
public hearing
good evening i'm julie wyatt senior planner with the city
of denton and i'm presenting z 18-14
commercial rezoning the request before you is to hold a
public hearing and consider a
recommendation regarding a rezoning from pd 115 district to
rcc district on approximately nine
acres the subject property is located on the north side of
the city in the general area of
loop 288 highway 77 and bonnie bray more specifically the
request is to um well more
specifically regarding the pd i guess i should say is is
that it was uh the detail plan for the pd
was approved in 2004 and that included a 10 000 square foot
church along with the accessory school
or daycare uses the applicant that it was never developed
so the applicant would like to rezone
the property in order to develop the site with a uh a mixed
use development a question came up at
work session is you know how did this small area of pd how
is it still here i did a little a little
looking around and this actually is is a part of the pd to
the south so it was the northern most
part of tracked of this pd and pd 115 then goes further to
the south so as you can see here if if
the rezoning was it would was approved then the map would
be modified to look like this
so our criteria for approval are in sub chapter three of
the denton development code first does
it comply with the future land use plan and then is their
adequate provision of water sewer
transportation and other public infrastructure so first we
'll look at the denton plan 2030
the subject property is located in the business innovation
designation of the future land use map
the intent is to provide for large employment centers and
also supporting uses such as retail
restaurant hotel and then higher density residential the
the future land use is is intended to provide
broad policy goals so that several zoning districts could
fit within those and meet those goals rcc
district in this instance and this location does beat it
particularly because it's close to areas
that will eventually develop with more lower density
residential here to the south there's
also some institutional uses around so it makes sense to
have those supporting uses like
retail and commercial uses less of those industrial type
uses that you might typically see
in a business innovation zone uh future land use
designation so rccd does meet the intent of it
also in addition that the access to the site the loop 288
as well as highway 77
provides the access and visibility necessary for retail
development the concept plan in front of
you was provided by the applicant as part of a trip
generation analysis the the request tonight
is not an approval of this concept plan to really approve
or a recommendation for approval of the
zoning district and the uses and development scale
associated with it this concept plan really is
a more of a discussion item to talk about trip generation
so the subject property they looked
at that as well as the adjacent property so an entire 32
acre that entire corner there at loop
288 and highway 77 and they developed some land use
assumptions in which to base the trips on
and that would include that included 400 multi-family dwell
ings as well as 122 000
square feet of retail the it trip generation manual
indicated that that would generate about
9800 trips 391 being in the am peak and then 833 in the
evening peak which is a lot of trips
in addition to future development in the area there's
significant proposed and also in
construction development in this general area just to look
at those briefly first of all you may be
aware that the the new dent in high school is proposed to
be located in this general area
you've got the unt discovery park here that's that's
operational townhome development we've
got multi-family development and a regional park there's
also a single-family residential
development that is is anticipated to come before you soon
so there's a lot going on
and and a lot of trips being generated by all of these uses
and so our engineering department
looked at that and felt like we we needed to get ahead of
some of the mobility issues in this area
and because of that they've they've determined they're
going to extend some bonnie bray
improvements north of university to this area and that
would include capacity and safety
improvements stormwater and utility relocations the intent
is to to provide a four-lane divided
arterial in this location and the it's currently under
design the final alignment has not been
determined but it is it is being studied and we'll know it
in the beginning part of next year
so it's either going to track to the west here shown here
or it would track to the east so we
just we just don't know what's going to be target
construction is to begin in late 2019
and it's supposed to be completed in time for the high
school to open
sorry in addition to mobility and the future land use we
also looked at the compatibility
of the zoning request there's not a lot of development out
here yet but there there is
zoning that affects it and in particular the rccd there's
quite a bit of it along north loop 288 so
if this zoning is approved it would be a logical extension
of that existing zoning pattern
any development that then moves forward in this general
area and on these corridors would be
compatible both in use and development scale as they would
all be in that same governing
zoning district development must comply with all ddc
requirements that includes tree preservation
site design lighting tree canopy and screening water and
sewer are not currently available so
so this they'll have to be extended as part of any
development here a notification was sent out of
the property we haven't received any responses and based
upon the criteria for approval and
staff's analysis we do recommend approval of the request
the applicant is here if you have
any questions and i will stand for any questions christ
opher beck thank you chair thanks julie i
noticed that uh rccd on residential uses it does allow
attached single-family dwellings does not
allow single-family building so attached would be talking
about like town homes things of that
nature yes sir okay and it doesn't allow any manufacturing
housing building but cedar okay the
only reason i asked because this was a specific area i was
looking at for tiny homes so that was
my concern about that anyway thank you i don't see any
other questions for you julie thank you
for your presentation this is a public hearing anyone
wishing to speak may do so
if you do you just need to come down state your name and
your address we can fill out a card later
what i would ask the commission if you have questions for
the applicant let's do that
in the public hearing before i close it out so if there's
anything that needs to be brought up from
the public questioning that so if you have questions for
the applicant let's do that before we close
public hearing and i don't see any so with that i'll go
ahead and close the public hearing open
this for discussion or motion commissioner smith motion for
approval commissioner sanchez
we have a first and a second any discussion
seeing none we call for a vote on the board
okay motion carries seven zero
that moves us to our last item for the public hearing item
three c z 18 dash zero zero
18 a i will open the public hearing and call cindy jackson
for presentation thank you
so
z 18 dash zero zero one eight is a request for approval of
a rezoning of a 20.7 acre site
from the nr4 neighborhood residential district to the nrmu
neighborhood mixed use 12 zoning district
site is located north of mckinney street which you can see
along here east of the loop which is here
and north of duchess which is along here
current zoning as you can see is nr4 the request the
proposed zoning nrmu 12 is an extension
of the existing nrmu 12 that is located to the north of the
site
the applicant's proposed concept plan can be seen here the
applicant is proposing a
townhouse development that will be developed as a multi-
family
development in that the townhouses won't be on their own
individual lots they'll be on one single
lot and but however they will be sold a condo style the
applicant is proposing no more than six
dwelling units per acre and the development respects the
topography of the area which is
very high in the middle of the site and then goes down 28
feet around the perimeter as well as
preserving as many trees as possible and i just want to
note that the minimum preservation
requirement for the site would be 12.5 percent of the
existing tree canopy
the purpose of the nr as i noted earlier the purpose for
the nrmu 12 is to facilitate this
development as well as a on one lot instead of them being
on separate lots even though the
proposed density is nr6 excuse me is six dwelling units per
acre the multi-family concept would not
be permitted in the nr4 nr6 zoning district an xup will be
required once if the zoning is approved to
move forward with this development when looking at rezon
ings we we have some criteria that we need
to follow per the dent development code the first question
is does the request conform to the future
land use plan and would there be adequate provision of
transportation water sewer schools parks etc
the the future land use designation of the site is moderate
residential which promotes single family
housing on small lots with a density of between four and
twelve dwelling units per acre the types
and uses and scale of development permitted in the nrmu 12
district do conform with the goals of the
moderate residential designation and with regards to
density use town homes are encouraged in this
in this designation and it's also encouraged to be used as
a buffer between residential
which this is single family attached duplexes to the south
and the more intense uses along mckinney
street specifically a church a multi-proposed multi-family
development and an electrical transformer
site i already did that the requested nrmu 12 district is a
continuation of the nrmu 12 district
to the north as previously noted the use is permitted in
the nrmu 12 district would be
consistent with the uses that exist today which are
moderate density residential uses the nrmu
12 district also permits some neighborhood scale commercial
uses however we're proposing an overlay
to restrict that those uses the development must comply
with all esa tree vet preservation buffer
screening tree canopy and lighting requirements water and
wastewater are available to the site
from trailhead lane and then there's also water available
from lane lane drive and from muckingbird
we sent out notices within 200 feet of the site via
certified mail and postcard notices
courtesy notices within 500 feet of the site we received
one response back in favor which is just
this right here this corner right here it's hard to see
that little corner represents 0.5 percent
of the land area within the 200 foot buffer three signs
were also posted on the site and there's
pictures of them in your backup staff recommends approval
of this request with a mixed use protection
overlay including the following conditions the use of the
site is limited to multi-family townhouse
to style style development with a maximum permitted density
of six dwelling units per acre
and the proposed northern access drive to mckinney street
shall be utilized as an ems emergency
medical service access only and that concludes my
presentation and the applicant is present as well
thank you cindy for the presentation i don't see any
questions at this time
oh commissioner sanchez
are you okay let's see yeah right there okay you have
mockingbird which is going to you said that
earlier we were told that that was going to be extended all
the way to mckinney mckinney has any
discussion been talked about that in the future maybe
having a road coming off mckinney and into
that development as a second access to to that not yet not
yet again as i noted previously this
is a concept plan and we are still we're going to work out
site details with the applicant when
he comes forward with the specific use permit application
and i know it's a concept plan but i
was just throwing that out that might be a consideration
because as at our work session
i did mention that that was only one access that's correct
right now and and the one that has been
proposed which is the one uh by the church well that's just
going to be an emergency so long term
i'm just saying long term and that area will be developed
and mockingbird will be developed all
the way maybe provide that as a look plan a road there that
will provide access sure the the
applicant can probably speak to that right now better than
i can as i said we're still in the
conceptual stage okay thank you cindy i don't see any other
questions okay
this is a public hearing if you're wishing to speak you may
do so by coming forward
okay
commissioner beck i'm hoping that the owner will come
forward and i do have a few questions for you
please just state your name and address for the record my
name is rick barria i live here in
denton at 51 12 edwards road okay did you have a
presentation you wanted to give us or yes i do
uh i didn't uh register i guess out front for it okay why
don't you go ahead and do that and if
my questions haven't been answered then i'll okay i'll do
that uh let's see if i yeah
i don't want to touch anyone else's presentation
there you go thank you
if i can just find that icon
okay i want to talk about clustering because that's really
the essence of this uh development i do
want to mention that um i'm here with uh jack medcalf who
was our engineer and also uh with
nathan olson he's our engineer as well now what is cl
ustering well i'll make a comment here
if i can hit one of these buttons there we go it's more
than just a better view that's one of the
reasons why people do it now this is a typical linear
development solution or dentons in our six
rules and i believe these are four or five plexus i didn't
count them all uh and the front facade
looks pretty good there's no garage and but you have to
have alleys with that and it requires quite
a bit more concrete and generally unless somebody plants
trees in the back there's no trees this uh
five in a row uh concept requires that you have a straight
street and a flat grade and i think that
building is about 180 feet long now with the slope that we
have on our site that doesn't work
no trees here either maybe now and forever i don't really
see a place to plant them and sometimes
people don't do that now this is uh another configuration
where you've got front driveways
there's less concrete but there's more cars and then i
asked the question can you count them all
well i did there's 20 of them not counting the hood of my
car now this is another linear concept
it's in a row and it follows the roadway centerline whether
it's curved or straight
and there's no green space there's no commons and i ask the
question what kind of community do you
really have you're only going to meet somebody if you walk
on the sidewalk this is the same property
a little different configuration which i think is much more
pleasing i did this in a seminar with
rick harrison who i think is the greatest designer in the
world by the way i hope to one day get as
good as him uh these bedrooms there were two bedroom units
that's what we thought these would be
the walkways are pleasant and they're separated from the
street it's much safer it's more fun to
walk down and uh it's definitely an improvement for
children and their safety now this is in houston
there are row houses with alleys gee they almost look like
dominoes now i don't know how many were
in the row i had an area that looked like they were eight
in a row generally and then there's
some houses behind others in the cul-de-sac now in grape
vine clustering here did save some trees
and their units are smaller and they stair step them down
the grade the grade drops going uh from
top to bottom and on this site and this is spencer road in
denton and this is a type of clustering
and the units are pretty small i think it's one of the
better looking rentals in denton now this is
oak vista and the blue section is our residential part and
then the other section where it says
office park that's what we plan to do sometime later when d
uchess is extended and we'll of course
pay for part of that you'll notice the red line it's
vertical uh that all of a sudden
departs uh where we got the section that is divergent and
it's a wider area that's bounded
by the blue green that is the drainage ditch we made it
wider in fact i did this long before
we had this am i running out of time let me go back you're
because you have 10 minutes okay
all right that's why we widen the channel what would you
put for the value here
or this or that i'm a believer in saving trees that's my
driveway
this i'm not the only guy that wants to save trees another
developer did it sometimes we have
damage sometimes you have surprises like bees this is how
it was developed we've got
problem if we try to excavate like this the topography
would hurt us we would have to dig a lot
so in this version we made the drawing to where we followed
the contours as same as this one
is a little closer look in case you have questions later
and we've done some floor plans they're
pretty small have one for empty nesters this one you can
come in the drive the garage in
either direction this one is very small and this one is for
singles so we know that we're going to
observe the building code and fire code by the type of
structure and that's one and two family
building code if there's three it's a separate code so here
's what we need we we've got a density
of nr6 the present design density is a little less than
that we are looking at a gated with
emergency only on the north now there's a little different
some of definition there the open layout
is multi-family the travel lanes radii is multi-family we
're going to have an hoa for maintenance and
order but we need one thing more and i talked to cindy jack
son earlier and i think we're of the same
mind on this the parking rules would be multi-family
because it is a multi-family arrangement i just
want to make sure and that would be uh one parking space
for each bedroom plus 10 percent
okay did i make the 10 minutes or close you're good it was
dinged on you if you went over
thank you for the presentation thank you see if we have any
questions for you christian or beck
thank you chair thank you mr bria you did answer one
question i think uh how are you going to
control that emergency lane i believe you're going to put a
gate a gate there yes there'll be a gate
there and it'll have an opticon opener so that the fire
department from the north which is naturally
where they would come from uh they can get in that way now
we would like to have an emergency opening
if we have some type of fire if somebody uh maybe they have
a car fire at the south gate or something
so that we can get out that way but it would i would
imagine almost never be used that way right
okay good um i was pleased to read uh that you're looking
for an opportunity to build affordable
smaller homes uh and that's what it looks like you've got
here because we were talking earlier
the need for more affordable homes and so could you give us
an idea what kind of price
frames we're looking at it would that be two percent of me
to certainly i'll tackle that now
i'm not a builder and i don't know what current building
prices are but i can tell you the size
of the units the smallest one is about 1050 square feet
okay and it does not have a garage
some of the garages will be detached a garage costs more
money and of course it seems that most
people today don't use their garages as garages they just
store things in them so we decided that
you know if we put a little more storage in the units and
we uh and we have carports that are
covered that would probably work especially at the lower
end of the market uh our largest unit would
be 1700 square feet uh we have one unit that's 1300 square
feet and that one is uh for empty nesters
that's about the size that they prefer most of them will be
two bedrooms a few will be three
bedrooms uh we won't have any one bedrooms because i don't
think we can get anyone to build one or
buy one but as far as the pricing goes i guess you could
multiply though that square footage by
the price of what it costs to build today did i answer your
question i think you did
between you and commissioner smith here um i assume too to
keep the price down there won't
be a lot of bells and whistles in there as far as
appliances and uh flooring and stuff like that or
is that well i would i would think and and this is not my
part of the project but it would seem
logical to me that if you had uh folks that were retired
and they wanted to retire there and it was
their last home they might pick granite counters or
something like that and expensive accoutrements
but a lot of people who are single who we want to sell to
uh because there's really no place to get
anything buy anything like this in denton i think they
would opt for something less expensive and i
did talk to a local builder who builds uh houses that aren
't expensive to pick his brain a little
and we'll try to follow his advice if we can okay okay i
didn't mean to corny you there okay
you also mentioned a shared backyard arrangement structure
so no fencing at all or just no
okay just just fences along the back line of the property
we decided that with what we were trying
to create that six foot wooden fences would not work but
people need to feel that part of that
space is theirs and it's defined so we thought of basically
a white picket fence or something like
that and at the corners where we would have a division we
would probably put some type of marker
on the ground as long as someone has a feeling of hey this
space is mine and you're not going to come
in and you're walking in through our backyard most people
can live with that especially if your
neighbors are okay i don't know what you would do in the
case of a really cranky neighbor but i guess
that would be for the hoa to handle later okay well i am
please really based on your narrative
you know your desire to observe trees keep open spaces
green areas so this looks like a real good
development to me thank you for answering my questions
thank you any other questions yeah
commissioner sanchez i have a question
i just wanted to say it's sounds like a pretty interesting
concept when i was reading the
information here and you had biplex i was wondering what a
biplex was well duplexes are usually are
usually rented right and that's why i coined this other
word biplex of course then if i try to use
triplex it doesn't really work out i guess officially you
might call them single family units
right right but as i was looking at uh you know uh long-
term access and and into that area i was
just curious and i i've mentioned it before is that uh
using um what is it mockingbird is there any
long-term planning on maybe coming in through mockingbird
as opposed to just having one exit
for that for that area well we had oh because i was gonna i
was just gonna say that emergency is
is only for emergency so really you just have one exit that
's correct yes and what we've tried to do
to mitigate that circumstance is we have chosen
deliberately a lesser number of units we're not
trying to put apartments there so that lessens the number
of trips also we decided that if we had some
people who are retired and we're trying to sell maybe 25 of
the units to retirees or people who
are 55 plus at least that they tend to get up a little
later they don't go to work and they
try to avoid traffic i remember my father's habits before
he died he would leave about 10 and if he
had to do something in the afternoon it was always in the
mid-afternoon and he said i don't need the
grief of being in the traffic so we think that will shave
off the peak demand that you might
normally have now as far as the access uh to the east we
tried for years i've got a letter that
goes back to i think 2010 where we tried to talk to uh the
people who own that land now it's owned
by trust and the trust does not want to sell just access
they want to sell the whole piece which is
not very usable and it snakes all around it's it's
something that you really can't use we have heard
though that in that area that there is a local investor who
builds apartments and was looking to
buy some of that property on lane street and also further
to the east and to the south if he did that
then he obviously could build something that would you know
be worth his time and then uh with a simple
s turn you would make mockingbird connect with mockingbird
but that would run through mr tonic
less property right through the middle so he would have to
sell i think he probably would
maybe that's why he favors this uh this development i don't
know his reasons but i'll just say yes
thank you very much okay okay thank you all right i do not
see any other questions thank you mr
barrio this is a public hearing anyone else wishing to
speak we certainly do so
seeing none i will close the public hearing and open up for
discussion or motion
commissioner beck i moved to approve this uh z 18018 i
think it's an excellent plan i think it
works well over in this area so i motion to approve and
commissioner beck for clarification
are you approving with the two conditions i'm sorry yes i
am thank you commissioner smith second
we have a first and a second any discussion seeing none i
'll call for a vote on the board
okay motion carries seven zero congratulations
that concludes the public hearing items for this evening we
'll move on to the plan and zoning
project matrix and richard i'll let you take lead initially
again just wanted to
highlight some items that we had discussed in work session
the item with respect to
traffic engineering items instead of having that on the 10
24 work session we'll be moving that to
1114 we also had at the same time a discussion regarding
the process for infrastructure updates
since we will we will have water and sewer staff members at
the next meeting with respect to the
capital improvements i think we can also still have them
address some of those concerns with respect to
to those utilities and then but still have the same
discussion as part of
pre-tambing the traffic engineers on on the 14th on the
historic preservation incentives we are
working on that i also wanted to let everyone know that
that the locota group has been in town
they were at hlc on monday they're the consultant assisting
with the historic preservation plan
and so i think right around that time so that that'll be
also an update on where we are with
the historic preservation plan but i know that plan was
also looking at including some of those
incentives just to give a quick update tree code we are
working as hailey mentioned earlier and
kind of pulling pulling it all together we're just we're
just going through kind of the refining
process right now we're going back to the committee on the
environment scheduled to go back on 11-5
and then we are going to have a work session with the city
council i believe it's on 11-13
and so as soon as we get that draft i'll make sure that
that everyone gets a copy
and depending where we are on the on the 14th i'll be back
just giving an update again keep just
making sure everyone's in the loop and how we're
progressing how we're progressing with that
otherwise i think that was it thank you thank you for that
update anyone have anything to add or
all right nothing to be added with that we will close the
planning zoning commission meeting at 7-12