Jan 08, 2019 City Council on 2019-01-08 12:00 PM
January 08, 2019 City Council
Full Transcript
welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday January
the 8th 2019 it is 1202 p.m. we do have a quorum I will open the meeting I did
receive a call from Councilmember Duff that he's under the weather so he he
probably won't be here today he is feeling better he may attend the works
at the meeting tonight working through our agenda items we will go ahead and
look at citizen comments on consent agenda items do we have any comments on
consent agenda items any blue cards seeing none okay
requests for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for today
January the 8th 2019 any requests for clarification on the agenda items
councilmember Briggs so I have a question item E about the range Creek
public hunting area I know that it's been done for a long time I'm just
curious what is the game and if any new animals have been added with this
animals have been added the legal game are those feral hog waterfowl migratory
birds squirrel rabbit and then there's fishing in there as well okay thank you
okay who else for yes councilmember Briggs I'm sorry item G the small
transportation projects there are several of those in district 2 and I'm
I'm wondering about if there's a how long the improvements will be implemented
once this is passed in the consent agenda if there's a timeline Todd Estes knee
engineer is your question more in reference to because this is the design
contract is this it in regards to just how quickly we'll get them implemented
yes so the methodology we're pursuing with this is that in-house construction
crews would do the construction so as soon as one of them gets designed which
they could be done within 60 to 90 days of them initiating every one of these
phase not not all of them would get signed in 60 90 days but once they start
on one they can easily have one done within 60 and 90 days with the
construction crews input on what they're gonna do so we should be able to roll
right into construction immediately afterwards the goal is to have all of
these under construction or completed construction before the end of the
calendar year okay thank you very much anybody else
verification for consent or not consent verification for agenda items seeing
none we'll move on we'll move into our work session reports agenda item 3a
receiver report hold a discussion and give staff feedback regarding the final
report from the police executive research forum organizational review of
the Denton Police Department good afternoon mayor council Frank Dixon
chief police for Denton Police Department I'm going to go over the
overview of the perf report that we had completed in mid to late October we got
the final report towards the middle of December and we're gonna go over kind of
the process by which we went about reviewing it in the processes we have
put in place or or in the process of putting in place so the background on
how we got to the perf report is there are some internal perceptions that some
qualified applicants for our police academy were being overlooked for less
qualified applicants simply for the sake of diversity those concerns were allowed
to grow and they weren't directly addressed by management at the time
which impacted greatly the legitimacy and the trust that Denton Police
Department had both internally and externally and in response to that the
city manager brought in perf to conduct an organizational review of the entire
department it wasn't any singular focus but it was more over processes policies
in the overall climate of the department and through that review it showed that
there was a perception of cronyism there was some inequities and how discipline
was both handled and just a lack in overall leadership and direction of the
department and that was done through anonymous surveys that were sent out so
as you can see the timeline for how the events occurred the manager commissioned
perf to come in and do the review they came in and began their study and as we
were getting feedback from this study we present we started implementing some of
the recommendations as a review was still ongoing chief Bobby Smith who was
the interim at the time did a very good job of taking direction from perf and
starting to implement some of the ideas as the review was ongoing at the
conclusion of the study perf did come to town and met with both the CMO and
leadership from a police department to give us kind of a rough draft of where
we were as an organization through the review and from that we again started
taking those recommendations and started implementing those as soon as we got
them literally the next day so in the event that you have never heard of Perth
before it's a police research police executive research forum that's based
out of Washington DC they are a consulting firm that specializes in the
area of law enforcement particularly the operations of a police department they
have conducted over 180 management studies throughout the country and they
publish ongoing reports almost daily about emerging issues within American
law enforcement and relevant case law so as I talked about the review they did
was a kind of an overall climate study that went through our department
policies and procedures our organizational structure and management
our response to critical incidents and our just the overall perceptions of our
employees in doing so they reviewed our entire department policy manual they
conducted on-site interviews I know they attempted to interview some of you they
also sent out anonymous surveys throughout the department and pretty
happy to say that out of 151 151 employees responded to it which is well
over 50% which is really good typically on a survey you're going to get between
20 and 30 percent of respondents and in this case pretty good number and one
thing that Perth did that I thought was really nice is they went and rode out
with police officers in the cars so they got to have some one-on-one time to
really get a personalized view from the police officer on what they felt was
going well or what could be improved from the employee survey that was done
we found out that towards the top of the list internal communication or the lack
thereof was very important to our employees it was something they said there
was lacking for some time in addition of that overall leadership and supervision
in training and resources we found through those surveys and through the
interviews that some employees felt like the training was relegated to a certain
group of employees and it wasn't offered holistically throughout the organization
so again what it revealed was our policies were in need of updates and
revisions to keep up with best practices and case law throughout the country
specifically in the areas of use of force and de-escalation and in order to
improve the organizational culture revisit revising our policies having a
more active and engaged leadership team that would help rebuild the trust
internally as well as externally which would lead directly to improve police
services for the community which is our number one goal and improving the
communication internally throughout the department so we kept our employees up
to date on not just what was happening but the why behind it and that in turn
improving disciplinary processes both in policy and in practice would improve
their feelings of equity throughout the organization yeah I think he's got a
couple of slides left let's go ahead and let him finish the presentation go ahead
I'm sorry sorry to interrupt you not at all so in moving forward kind of like I
said we've been updating policies and procedures completely revising the
entire policy manual where we have gone out and solicited the Lexapol company to
come in their industry leader in policy and procedure management they have a
team of lawyers that keep up with case law throughout the country as well as
best practices and they keep their policies in line with the Texas Police
Chiefs Association best practices so along with that we are establishing a
new disciplinary process by which we have more active and engaged leadership
from the sergeant rank lieutenant rank on up to myself being able to have every
rank engaged in the disciplinary process really pays off in dividends in
cultivating that new leadership internal we looked at our personnel to make sure
we have the right people in the right seats and we're delivering the best
possible service we can to the community I created a chiefs advisory committee
the first week I was here we have met on four different occasions already and
this is a committee comprised of both sworn and civilian members of the
department various ranks gender colors across the board very diverse they bring
issues that are concerning to any employee in the organization they meet
they discuss it and then they bring the emerging issues to me directly also hold
regular scheduled meetings with our supervision both lieutenants alone by
themselves and the lieutenants and sergeants together which really helps
when everyone's getting the same message at the same time it keeps from having
any kind of misunderstandings or miscommunications I'm also meeting with
both association presidents of vice presidents right now on a monthly basis
but as time goes on we'll probably move those back to about quarterly so as
we're looking towards the future one of the things that we're looking at is our
patrol staffing allocation do we have our resources deployed in the right
places in the right manner we're in the process right now developing a five year
strategic plan so we know not just where we're at but where we're going which is
more important planning ahead for future growth and for delivery of service the
realignment of patrol areas again looking as the seat of Denton grows the
need to have our deployment very easily done from a police station is something
we're looking at right now and then that leads us into asset assessing where
would be a good place for a future substation if that were to occur
that's my monitor thank you so first of all I applaud you know not only the fact
that this study was done but that it's publicly available I really appreciate it
and I know that in order to make positive reforms you have to err you know
what's what's broke that you're gonna fix and so I I I appreciate this and
this is how we strive to do better so that said I was I was wondering I had
several questions but most of all pertaining to the review board so I
appreciate that there's now going to be a review board and I'm quoting here from
the perf report the review board consisting at a minimum of the
assistant chief of operations a lieutenant or sergeant from training and
a representative from professional standards I really like the part in
there about at a minimum and is as you already know I think you know I'm in
favor of having a civilian review board of incidents of force to establish not
only they you know trust among people in the police department which is what the
perf report was focused on but also for trust from the the public and so I was
wondering if you had anticipated that within that at a minimum in the
composition of the review board if that would include civilians who are not
within the police department in other words you know members of the public who
would who would be able to like members of a jury or members of our public
utility board you know we have many a number of other departments where we
have civilian review boards you know why can't we do that with with the police
too and to what extent is that possible under these these new suggestions so
councilmember and there's a couple of different things we have to look at one
being we have to make sure we're in compliance with chapter 143 of the state
code the relative kind of regulates what we can do and cannot do in civil
service organizations so having a civilian sit on the front end during the
initial review of any uses of force would I won't say impossible be very
hard to accomplish right now as it stands one of the things that I'm looking
at is I am hiring in the process of hiring a civilian compliance and
accreditation manager or specialist who may be able to fill that gap as a
unbiased third party that could be involved in internal affairs cases sure
and so that would be somebody who is employed by the police department yes
yeah okay um so I appreciate that I think that for a lot of people in the
public it wouldn't feel independent if it was somebody who is working for the
police department but I do understand of course that within the review board as
you're saying you know that that there would be that there's some issues
because having to do with the laws and requirements that are already on the
books so I wouldn't encourage and you know these conversations can be had
later it's a work in in progress but that there be a consideration of an
additional review board a civilians civilians review board to have a chance
to look at these incidents and to make recommendations after the in the
internal review board but I I do like that that addition that you just spoke
to anyway thank you very much just man breaks thank you chief and thank you for
the presentation so I just wanted to let the public know that the actual report
was of 88 pages or something like that it was pretty long and there's many
recommendations that have been implemented or are in the process and I
just encourage them to go and look and read the full report I just wanted to
ask you was there anything in this report it was pretty that was that was
surprising there was nothing in the report that I hadn't heard either through
the hiring process or soon afterwards coming in and talking to employees
throughout the department okay thank you because Mary Meltzer thank you chief and
would you mind just giving us a little more insight into your goals with respect
to realigning patrol areas like how you in general might see that changing what
the public might see different you know as you know kind of unfurl your concept
so my goal is not to impact police services but to actually make police
services more visible to more areas of the community one of the things we're
looking at right now is restructuring our beats to have them smaller so
individual officers can have more ownership more personalized approach to
the area town if they're kind of charged with patrolling with that I'm just as a
father would do you anticipate a change in the amount of patrolling that's done
in cruiser versus on foot well with that it goes directly into what community
policing is and community policing is nothing more than just being a good
police officer getting to know the people in your beat getting out talking
to them whether they're mowing their yard checking their mail or just hanging
out in the front yard we really want to get our cops out of their cars into the
community more in looking at how we allocate our resources is going to be a
big part of that thank you
yeah and then I'm gonna wrap it up go ahead okay yeah I had so as a councilman
Briggs mentioned it's a really long report a lot of work was put into it and
I really appreciate you know not only the work that was done by the
organization hard to do this but by everybody who complied with it and so so
I do think it's important that you know that we take some time here to go over
at least a few of the issues that are brought to light in it I'll focus on on
just two things because there are so many for now I'm number one under the
section about tasers there's the perf recommends the following changes I'm
just reading from this the report here the following changes to section five
point four point five that DPD should add language instructing officers not to
purposefully target sensitive areas of the subject body quote personnel should
not intentionally target sensitive areas eg head neck genitalia when deploying and
ECW that the tasers so I take it from that and I didn't go back after this and
actually read the whatever the policy is if there had been a policy that until
this point and it says this recommendation has already been
implemented that's been done already but had there really not been until this
point a policy that specifying not to target these sensitive areas of the body
so the language was not in the policy but it was not common practice for anyone
to do that by practice they did not do it just through the culture of the
organization but now memorializing that in policy will make sure that we have
something to refer back to yes and good so I think that's that's a real
improvement and could you just speak while we're on that topic to you the
use of tasers in general with was it consider and I know you've had
experience working in also in another police department but is you know where
their questions asked about the use of tasers beyond just kind of when when not
to use them in other words you know should they be used at all are there
specific incidents where they shouldn't even be carried or you know and any time
and officers in uniform on site are they permitted to carry a taser you know how
much in that question is at the discretion of a police chief
you could speak briefly to that I know that's a whole dissertation right there
but so the taser was founded and implemented as a means of lowering the
risk of anyone being injured in any type of confrontation with the police officer
so it's just another tool in their tool belt any time they're in uniform they're
authorized to carry the taser there are prohibitions when you cannot use it and
when it's acceptable so there's no restrictions on when you can and cannot
carry a taser but there are restrictions on when you can use it well thanks for
answering that question and you know I would love to see you know at some point
in the future you know some consideration on whether or not it is in
fact necessary to always have a taser a taser on hand whether maybe maybe it
would be a good idea to place limitations to prevent to prevent
accidents specifically taser related accidents from from occurring and then
and finally I wanted to ask about the part of their report and I found it
fascinating the results of the survey I thought the questions were really good
questions that were asked yeah and you know I appreciated the the anonymity of
it I was interested in I don't have the page number here but it's one part that
singled out by the perf report says on table 11 DPD employees overwhelmingly
responded that they believe whites and minorities are treated the same when it
comes to opportunities for special assignment slash professional
development and promotion and it says you know people were asked to rate kind
of to what extent they they agree with the following statement whites are
treated better than minorities that was five point six percent said that
minorities are treated better than whites seven percent and then whites and
minorities treated about the same dimension you know the vast majority was
there any I know the survey was anonymous and that's how it should be but
was there any data taken about or a what do you call it you know across and when
you when you take different data sets and try to compare and look at the
overlaps to see how people identified themselves who answered minorities are
treated better than whites you know whether these were people who identify as
white or people of color or was that was that kind of question not asked
because of the anonymity correct exactly because they want all the
response for him to remain anonymous demographics were not asked in the sense
of being able to go back and correlate it okay okay great and so obviously so
the same is true with the questions about that 10.5 percent thought men were
treated better than women 3.5 percent really small minority thought women
treated better than men and roughly the same you know the 86 percent treated
about the same so I just want to ask that question but also to highlight
those findings for the public just as kind of a little a preview of the kind
of interesting things you can find when when you read this report and I would
encourage members of the public you know not just to read it but to ask
questions of counsel and then we'll ask questions of of our new chief and and I
just want to thank you for just doing such a great job of answering questions
and and being open about all this thank you
councilmember Hudson yeah no I'll just say thanks again for your leadership in
this area but for me I think the big biggest value add was in the biggest
concern for me today is that when I met with the representative my meeting was
nine to ten or so and he said I was the last and only person set for that day so
it's it's tough for me to sit here today because all the questions that are
concerns that were raised by me individually and by citizens were
brought to the attention of the representative and I know later that
resonated because when the mayor met with them he then articulated some of
those things and they talked about that in their meeting and so as as a body it
I think it's important to take advantages and get those questions out
there in advance versus retroactively and so for me I think I'm happy to see
the things and issues that I've raised early on and that are implemented going
forward and the concerns I raised come out in the report and be addressed in a
report and I just think it's important to raise concerns timely so that they
can be addressed versus after the fact and so I do look forward to the feedback
we get but I think it speaks volumes that the most most of the the
implementation has been affected I mean you haven't been here that long and so
that's really hitting the ground running and I really appreciate that so thank
you thank you anybody else well chief thank you so much for what you've done
even just the short time that you've been on the department I want to thank
the city manager for the foresight to to institute this report or to commission
this report and I really want to say that I really encourage people to look
at the report as well but I don't want people to say or to read the report and
think that because there's a recommendation made as in the example
brought out by councilmember armature that since there's a policy stating a
recommended policy saying that you shouldn't intentionally target certain
parts of the body during a taser deployment that somehow the inverse of
that was true before this report and that is that they could have been
intentionally doing that and that's just an example so the point being that a lot
of this report from when I read it is the memorialization of practices and
procedures that are already in place but needed that additional kind of
documentation for the review board and and things such as that so I really
encourage everyone to read that because we've all heard and as councilmember
husband has has so eloquently stated you know they met with whoever would meet
with them prior to this report being issued and a lot of the concerns and
issues that were that have been raised through various different means through
conversation through correspondence whatever some of that is somewhat
addressed what's addressed in the report as far as what is the exact what's the
word I'm looking for what is the extent of what we've heard you know things can
fly around but data is data and as far as what councilmember armature brought
up about people you know would you consider you know having a policy where
people aren't armed with tasers I appreciate that request but I will tell
you I trust you in the law enforcement area I trust that the public that you're
open to the public and I want to make sure that number one the public is first
and foremost protected but I also want to make sure that the officers who are
doing this job day in and day out have the tools that they need to handle a
situation and mitigate it as strongly as possible and that's what I like about
this report is it does memorialize all of the use of force and really puts a
real tight procedure and policy in place that again I think probably has been the
practice but now it's for the public to see that this is the official stated
policy of the Denton Police Department and I want to tell you the most I don't
know if it's alarming or concerning part of this report it was the most
surprising part of the report to me and that's the report on page 75 of the
report and I'm glad that it was addressed in the report and I and I
hope that this body will read that and take that to to heart where it said on
page 75 it was mentioned several times during focus groups the special requests
for municipal government officials are often disseminated through PD without
following the chain of command DPD should implement a consistent process for
handling the concerns of local politicians I can make this commitment
to you today that I will make sure that if I have a request to you or for some
information from the police department I will either funnel it through the city
manager or to you or anyone that you designate for those kinds of requests
because I know that we all ask city staff I think it's sometimes for
information and things that we have the ability to do but I really see the
police department as a different department I mean you guys handle critical
sensitive confidential information and I would not want any of us to put any you
or anyone under your purview and under your watch in any kind of delicate
situation so that to me was something that is directly addressed to us here on
counsel and so I really am going to take that to heart and make sure that and if
I do not follow that I give anybody permission to let me know that because I
need to do that as well so again thank you what I really liked was as I read
most of the recommendations it said already implemented already implemented
already implemented so it's it's a testament to you and your executive
staffs and your leadership staff's commitment to make this the best police
force that you can and so I really appreciate that and appreciate your
leadership and appreciate the leadership of the interim chief prior to when you
you arrived to buy by implementing some of these things as well so thank you so
much for that and any comments from you chief or any more comments from the
council I would be remiss if I didn't go on record and recognize the team that
really did the work behind this and that's Bobby Smith who was the interim
chief at the time the assistant chief now deputy chiefs Chris Summit and Frank
Padgett Shanika Mayo and detective Alisa Howell it was so important for us to do
this that we put detective Howell on this full-time doing nothing but policy
and she's still doing nothing but policy so if you have a policy question that
will be the person to go to okay all right she knows it yeah so I really want
to emphasize that though so if you could somehow either through the city manager
just get us who would be our contacts I mean I don't know if you want to have
them all but just someone where you can we can have as a point person so that
we're not going to various different people in the department when we have
certain requests I appreciate that anybody else yes I just wanted just a
second just some of the you know new appointments have that that that have
been made especially as Mayo and Miss Howell right here I have just seen you
know in short time the positive things that have come from this and it just it
it means a lot you know and I'm impressed you've been here not not not
that long I've been here not that long I wasn't on council when the when when
the perf report was was first ordered and and input was solicited from council
but I really appreciate all you're doing and anyway thank you thank you very much
and thanks to all of you okay fantastic thank you chief thank you you bet all
right we'll move on to our next agenda item which is receive report hold
discussion you have staff direction regarding an update on the city of Denton
landfill landfill permit amendment MSW permit number 1590 B
good afternoon mr. mayor members of council my name is Ethan Cox I'm the
director of solid waste for the city of Denton it's my pleasure to bring this
item forward for council review today this is a an item that was requested by
council back in November for a topic for discussion so today I have a short
presentation for you we're gonna talk a little bit about where we are with the
landfill permitting status as well as we'll talk a little bit about local
control and what council can do from a in terms of kind of a regulation
standpoint for the landfill after the permit is issued by the state I do have
a few guests here with me today I brought an entourage from our engineering
firm Park Hill Smith and Cooper we have mr. Holly Holder he's the director
principal a professional engineer with PSC they've been the engineering firm of
record that has assisted us throughout the last several years in getting the
permit ready for issuance to TCEQ helping us navigate those waters we also
have Jeff Reed who's a principal at Lloyd Gosling attorneys of law Jeff is
helping us navigate the permitting process as well at the state helping us
identify the legislative issues the regulatory issues that we need to be
cognizant of and so if we have questions that kind of veer into their sort of
influence I will certainly turn it over to them otherwise we'll do our best to
answer the remainder remaining questions operationally so we'll start a little
bit just in terms of our current landfill permit I think everyone in this
room understands we have a municipally owned landfill that we operate out at
1527 South Mayhill Road for the citizens watching we have operated that landfill
or out of that site for a couple of decades now since about 1980 the current
cell that we're in is stopped 1590 a with TCEQ it's about 174 acres that
accommodates a type 1 landfill facility what type 1 means in terms of
classification is we can accept pretty much all types of municipal solid waste
say for a few special categories like hazardous waste that means we can take
all your household waste as well as construction demolition and some
industrial waste as well as of 2017 we dispose about 268,000 tons a year that
was up to about 275 last year the reason why these items are permitted I know in
a lot of cases what we see on TV of a landfill is not necessarily what you see
when you come out to our site it's not the open dump of the 1950s or 60s these
are modern sophisticated facilities that have a number of regulations assigned to
them by the state and again those are just setting the bare minimum of what we
try to do as an operation so some of the things you'll typically see in a landfill
permit are to make sure we have a plan for compacting waste installing cover
controlling for odors vectors nuisances you also have a gas management system
that's in place fairly complex one when waste breaks down methane gas is
generated so you have to have a means of dealing with that either turning that
into electricity or disposing of it there's litter control modern liners are
on underneath modern lane fills to make sure that whatever goes in the waste
pack does not impact the surrounding area and then also you'll see height
restrictions and a lot of permits as well one of the questions that council
had asked leading up to this presentation is what are their options
have we considered in terms of not expanding the landfill and to kind of
answer this you know in terms of why are we expanding the landfill really the
simple answer is we're in the fat one of the fastest growing regions in the
country with diminishing waste disposal capacity there's a report given to the
TCEQ about a year ago that this region the north central Texas region only has
about 38 years of disposal capacity left but we're growing at a rapid rate and so
what that means is there's an abundance of waste that needs to find a place to
be disposed and not a lot of place to put it way that impacts us is we want to
take a look at our community and say okay well what do we need to be planning
for for the future we want to try to obviously to reduce and divert and
recycle as much as we can but at some point we're gonna have to take a look at
where does the waste get disposed to that in typically a landfill will go
through and look at disposable capacity landfill life we had a study back in
2016 for closure of the facility that estimated we had about 10 years worth of
landfill life left so that would put the closure year at 2028 we have made a
number of changes recently to our operations a lot of times the variables
that you look at when you try to estimate landfill life or what's the
volume of waste coming in what's the growth rate of that what's the
compaction so one of the things that you look at at a landfill is your most
valuable commodity is called airspace and that is the lateral or vertical
consumption of space as you dispose of waste making sure that you're compacting
that and using that as efficiently as possibly can that is really one of the
key determining factors and how long you can operate a facility and how
efficiently and then obviously as waste decomposes you do have settlement and so
when you factor all those things in some of the changes we've made recently we
believe we may be able to extend the existing facilities life up to 2036 now
with that being said like I said we do have a rapidly growing region population
and commercial growth based on our last year's disposal data we have a little
over 1,700 pounds worth of disposal per capita per year and so we do have to
find a place for that waste to be disposed right now Denton County has
about three type one landfills if our landfill goes offline in 2036 we will be
down to one in that mix is the DFW landfill that we've heard is going to be
closed in the next two years between our waste as well as their waste that's
about 1.8 million tons of waste that would need to find a home for disposal
councilmember Briggs you have a question yeah yeah just wondering if you could
explain to me because we've been going through this permit process for a really
long time and then when I look at this slide I see it's possibly I mean even
after the decisions that we've made here on council with BMR and rebel that we
are making those decisions to extend the life of our landfill sure why are we
even considering the landfill growth and expansion at this moment in time when
when we can see that it's not even going to be needed for 18 more years I think
the answer to that is it doesn't get easier to permit a landfill regulations
do get stiffer as you move along in addition I think the the best way to
answer that is these are multi-year processes to get a permit in place if I
might I'll kind of go through I'm going to skip over to a different slide that
kind of goes through that in terms of landfill permitting process we started
this back in the early aughts in terms of setting the strategic plan at the
council level I saw discussions back as far as 2002 we had land acquisitions that
started back in 2011 2012 there's a battery of studies and professional
services that have to go into a landfill application all that's leading up to
just submitting the application which we did in January 2017 and so my
understanding is we've been at this for at least six or seven years right now
there's not any additional landfills in the pipeline at the TCEQ for the North
Central Texas region which means that once that process starts it may be five
ten twelve years before you get a new greenfield landfill on the ground so I
think it is a situation where we are so far along in the process right now we
are literally at the one-yard line with the agency in terms of permitting that I
don't disagree with your question I think it's one of those things that
that's probably a conversation we could have had about eight or ten years ago
and probably would have been a good discussion at that time and so when I
see about the money that's been spent it's around ten million dollars so far
that's that's a lot so do we plan on recouping that money is that what with
fees and things and when you say we're gonna be the only landfill in the area
is there a possibility that this council can say you know we don't we don't want
to accept outside stuff or is that do we have to is it is something that is a
requirement if we're the only one around it's not a requirement that's certainly a
policy decision for this council is to what kind of waste do you want to accept
how do you want to operate the facility I think there are regional pressures
that's something I think that the region and the state has to take a look at
whether the city decides to accept outside waste at what volumes and what
price that is all within the decision-making authority of the council
okay thank you I think if I could build on Ethan's answer I mean that's been
part of the reason that we asked that they had the study conducted this last
year and there was really a plan and I guess in place to go towards more of a
regional collection facility and the question is if our performers are so
wrong and it's eating up land space so fast why are we doing this and it's
exactly why we brought you those policy discussions on the sludge for instance
and some of those other things is you know if we can basically tap the brakes
this is not about making money recouping the cost this is purely about for the
future generations do we have the ability to to service the the waste in
our community as we continue to grow at a two or three percent annual clip but
your question is a good one and I think you know we've started tapping the brakes
on many of these programs because it was clearly leading us down that regional
path which was putting all the burden on us in our residents and our ratepayers
and we weren't even recouping our costs to begin with so these are great
questions the philosophy is is out there I think we've been pretty open about it
but see if it says you've got to build in a five to ten year window just to get
this thing permitted at the end of the day if we continue implementing some of
the practices and I know the count several of you are interested in and I
know he's about to get to I'm gonna steal your thunder you know we will get
a little bit of additional life out of the landfill probably not more than a
couple years from our calculations but it's one of those things where our
recommendation is you do take a more parochial view of the landfill and we
not be expanding this any faster than we need to and you ultimately get the final
call on what programs are out there how far we go with this how much weight and
waste we take how high we build so we're just setting that table so hopefully you
have those calls on operating your own landfill but it was important to us that
we get those policy questions out in the open I didn't really feel that had been
occurring I think to build one last statement on to what Todd's saying I
think our philosophy here is especially with where we are with the permit at
this time we have some certainty for what our citizens can expect our
businesses can expect for disposal in the future that's important because the
the landscape in the region in terms of disposal capacity is very uncertain
there's also a number of other uncertainties in the market surrounding
waste management and so I think let's say for instance we do receive the
permit it's approved as amended there's nothing that says that we have to use
that capacity and that's certainly where the council comes in and you all get to
set those standards on how do we want to utilize this asset how do we want to
operate this facility and that's that's really the goal that we have at the
staff level a few of the details I want to share on the permit and hopefully you
can see this drawing over here this is a engineer drawing of where the new cells
are going to be where the expansion is going to occur so here on the left of
these little red lines here that's Mayhill Road our existing operations
are down here to the south what we had requested from the state and the permit
expansion is styled 1590 B this is a vertical and lateral expansion north of
the facility it would be taken in about a hundred seven point six four acres for
additional waste disposal capacity the way that typically works is you phase
these in through what you call landfill cells and so you develop one cell at a
time you run that up to whatever operating height is prescribed and then
you develop your next cell on and on and on one of the things that we've heard
from citizens as well as some focus advocacy groups out there in the
community is well look you're displacing your recycling facility you're
displacing all these operations that is true at some point we're gonna have to
relocate those facilities now that discussion probably doesn't happen for
20 to 30 years but we have had some cursory discussions with our recycling
facility they're definitely interested in maintaining a footprint here in
Denton our contract with them runs through 2027 we definitely want to have
a recovery facility here we definitely need to have administrative offices
fueling stations things like that so this is not removing those facilities
and not looking back it's simply relocating them but these cells in this
location was chosen specifically for the environmental protections as well as
needs to be away from the floodplain and other things associated with the permit
one of the things I'll mention in terms of the landfill height because this is a
vertical and lateral expansion if we stay at our current operating height
which is about 80 foot above grade whether that's a permit requirement or
the council says we don't want the operation to go above 80 foot we would
be adding about 20 years of additional waste capacity to the facility so this
closure year that you have over here of 2036 we would be adding 20 years to that
so you'd be closing in about 2056 if we go to the maximum proposed height and a
quick aside on that typically when you put a permit amendment in what you look
at is what is the say what at what height can we safely operate from an
engineering and operations standpoint that's typically what you apply in the
permit TCQ often will reduce that height through the permit process further once
the permits issued this governing body through NSGP will be allowed to further
reduce and restrict that height the reason why you want that control at the
local level is it allows flexibility for future councils if we need to adjust
operation standards the ability to do that that option isn't always there at
the state level because you have to go back through the permitting process but
that being said if we did go to the max proposed height as permitted or in the
permit application we'd be adding about a 50 years to the end of the landfill
life so 2086 that's a lot of flexibility for the community in the out years so
anyway thank you very much you know as you know I'm opposed to the the landfill
expansion and and I also really support what the city manager was just saying is
the recommendation for this new I like your term for a new parochial view of
which which is often a bad word but it makes sense to focus for the future on
our own trash and not other people's not see not having our city be a collection
site for other people's trash obviously we can't go back in time so anyway I do
appreciate that that part of this plan even though I I'm not convinced of the
necessity for the expansion but can you can you speak to kind of you know
reconcile for me a little bit you know why there's this imperative to do this
now with as I think you mentioned a two-year window of about a couple years
or we need to continue with with the status quo versus at the same time you
know we can go for 20 years you know into the future under just the the
current permit height so I'm having having a rough time kind of reconciling
especially knowing that some future council 20 years from that they can
decide to expand if if they want to how do those just to be clear I think the
the permitting process the land acquisition the engineering studies all
the lead-up that goes into applying the permit that's what takes the lion's share
at the time that that's behind us now and I think there's really not an
opportunity to place the permit on hold it's either we pursue with the permit or
we pull the permit from the state I think for us having 95% of this in the
rearview mirror staff position would be we would we would recommend we continue
with it do we need this capacity right now we would only construct these cells
whenever the community needs it but again I think you push through with the
permit you have the capacity when you choose if you choose to use it I think
that would probably be the recommendation at the staff level at this stage I'm
going to save my comments for the end so yeah because I know you've got about eight
slides so if you got a question council member rigs go ahead well I mean I have
a question just about the because you did mention that the recycling facilities
and some of those are going to be gone and when somebody brought that to my
attention that it was going to be covered you know in trash in phase three
I was really shocked and this may be more comments for the end but I would
like and I think that it would be responsible of us to make sure that
those plans and relocation plans and a place for those are are set before any
of this comes up so that if it does expand we do have plans for those to be
relocated there's a couple of challenges with that that I'll head on real quick
number one is our agreement with Pratt Industries whose there are material
recycling facility that only runs through 2027 we have had some cursory
discussions with them as we got into this is look not just your facilities
but our facilities as well will have to be relocated we have had some internal
discussions about we have developments on the north side of town on the south
side of town it's a growing community so as that occurs we're gonna have to
account for press relocation or whoever our material recovery partner is but
we're also gonna have to secure our location for our collection fleet as
well the challenge with doing that right now is again removing those facilities
at the soonest is at least 20 to 30 years out we can certainly start those
plans now we just haven't got to that stage yet in terms of holding this
process for us to secure those plans I'm not certain that's something the state
would entertain I think they're gonna need to get the permit through the
process sooner rather than later but that doesn't stop us from starting those
plans internally if that's what we choose to do. So I talked a little bit about this earlier in terms of
what's been completed our permit application was followed in January we
had public notice issued via the newspaper in April 2017 since that time
we've gone through an administrative review as well as a technical review the
application TCEQ were on the very last stages of the technical review what
we're working through with the agency right now is just making sure that we
have their questions answered on floodplain improvements in the
surrounding area during this process TCEQ does accept public comments and we
have been keeping an eye on those at a certain stage in the future the TCEQ
will be responding to all public comments. I want to get through the
presentation before we ask questions so just you got a few more slides left let's
do that instead of let's get through the presentation and we'll go ahead and take
questions. In terms of remaining steps like I said we've got about one or two
more months until technical completion is done at that stage the agency will
issue another request or another public notice that notice is going to be given
to the folks in this room certain landowners that have standing around the
facility as well as any citizen who submitted comments via the TCEQ website
an additional public comment period will run for about 30 days the agency will
publish responses to those in that instance the agency may decide to have a
public hearing that will be held here in Denton and if there is hearing request
granted after that those would be referred to the State Office of
Administrative Hearings. This process right here could take up to a year
depending on how how involved the public comment period is. Lastly once the permit
is issued we will be circling back with the City Council basically providing the
council with here's what the permit says in terms of operating standards here's
our side operating plan do you want to make changes to this. Understand the
council can always be more restrictive than what is said at the state level I
mentioned earlier the permit is typically a minimum standard for
operations that's not the way our department approaches these things
minimum standard is not our target we we tend to shoot above that we can
certainly memorialize that with a specific use permit to be more
restrictive at the local level. That includes things like maximum operating
height buffers and setbacks as well as landscaping aesthetics. In addition
council also can weigh in on operating plans via directive that could be
operating hours typically we haven't had too many concerns with that we're
typically about seven to four but if we wanted to be more restrictive there we
can certainly do that as well. Litter control, dust control, nuisance
abatement all those are all things that we certainly serve at the council's
pleasure I want to make sure we're being attentive to. So with that that is the
conclusion of my presentation. Happy to stand for any questions. So I wanted to
thank you sincerely for providing all that information about how members of
the public can get in touch with TCEQ and what the process will be moving
forward that it does a lot for for transparency and I would encourage
members of the public you know regardless of your feelings on this
whether you're for or against the landfill expansion to write to TCEQ and
to continue to write to us as well to let us know how you feel about the
landfill expansion. So far I've only received letters against and emails
against the the landfill expansion none in favor of it but I do want to hear
from from everybody I know we all do so so I encourage that and I'll just
mention that and this would be my last comment that my directive would be not
what would be to to stop here in the permitting process rather than you know
putting additional money and and trust in some future counsel you know to make
decisions that maybe none of us here at this table present would make today but
we don't we're not going to be here that many years from now where people have
the power to you know reverse reverse our decisions so that's why I'm giving
the direction that I'm giving but again I really do appreciate your transparency
about all this and an openness about the TCEQ public input process. I have a
question about the SUP that was mentioned because we have a current one
it is this the one that is in the slide the previous slide does that take over
and it's all one for the whole landfill or is that going to be separate on the
new expansion will it be well what we would be inclined to do is take in the
entirety of the site so that would be the existing SUP understand that the
future development up here does not currently have a specific use permit
assigned to it so we want to make sure that we have the appropriate buffers and
things in place not just for our existing side but the future side as well
okay and on the so how much we've we're 10 million in how much more do we plan
on shelling out for that like how much more will it cost I mean if completing
the process do we have an idea for that it's somewhat hard to say that's
something that we've talked to our partners on with this I mean obviously
there's no no additional property acquisition so a lot of it will be
dependent on the level of involvement in the public process I mean if there is a
public hearing if there is an administrative hearing that's that's
gonna add some expenditures to that it's just hard for me to really ballpark it
at this stage at some point I would like generally when we are considering any
item there is a an amount that we consider and so I'd like to have at
least an estimate on you know what it's gonna be all in at some point we've had
discussions with that once we get through the technical review period as
well as we get into some of the public comment period I've talked to you our
partners here and basically we will be coming back to council with a change
order to make sure that you're aware of the expenditure authority we're graining
to finish out the permitting process if it comes to that okay and I just think
about all the money that we've spent so far and then I think about what we could
have done if we implemented that into you know better recycling programs
composting and more energy production on-site like what where we would be now
so thank you very much for this thank you I want to give you an opportunity to
share your response to some questions that I've asked you previously related to
how much we could can and we're ballparking because you know I know
we're waiting on a kind of a more complete analysis but how much you think
we might be able to extend the life of the existing landfill if we implemented
universal multifamily recycling and also curbside compost sure so we have done
a little work on this I appreciate you giving that heads up on that so what we
have up here on this slide is essentially the tonnages that we take in
by customer source from a disposal standpoint as well as what we're
currently diverting today understand that we do have a number of diversion
operations Denton's typically been very progressive on these diversion operations
compared to other cities so right here on the left what we have is our total
refuse that comes into the facility that must be disposed or landfilled that
counts for about 73% of all tonnages received by our facility 276,000 tons
annually we do have a number of diversion programs that we have over
here today or for last year we diverted about 38,000 tons of that waste or about
10% of what we received as counselor members we did have some of the concrete
and asphalt that stockpiled we're not counting that in either category so we
do have a number of diversion programs one of the things that we wanted to take
a look at to Councilmember Melcher's request is well what's our average waste
composition typically for a community like us you would go through and do a
waste composition as part of a comprehensive waste management plan we
have not done one in Denton that's something we can certainly look at but
what we did instead is we took a look at regional averages that in terms of the
waste profile for Dallas Fort Worth Arlington as well as the North Central
Texas Council of Governments they ran a study on this so this pie chart here
basically gives you a breakdown of what is in the typical ton of municipal solid
waste so Councilmember Melcher to your point if we were able to eliminate say
food waste completely from our waste profile which is not very likely much
like recycling there's contamination that goes into food waste some food waste
cannot be diverted animal carcasses things like that you can't necessarily
compost those and so if we were able to take this 20% completely out of the
picture that could add an estimated three to four years of landfill life
likewise we also looked at multifamily recycling ordinance it's very hard for us
to quantify exactly how much more recycling we could do from multifamily so
we made an assumption let's just say we doubled our amount of recycling that
we're doing today if we were able to double recycling which is about 8,000
tons a year we would essentially add about 6 to 9 months of landfill life on
our existing facility and so what we try to do with this analysis is try to be as
try to kind of take a look at best-case scenario I guess is probably the best
way to say it is what would that add to the landfill life we were able to do it
at that scale what I would say to the council is I would expect the results to
be less than this because this is a best-case scenario analysis so yes yes
go ahead can you clarify then well what what were the new insights that might
make you change your projection from 10 years to 18 years it's not this then so
I don't want to get too far into the weeds but I think that's a big change
that's the trees you know it's not the weeds so I mentioned earlier there's a
number of variables or assumptions that you look at whenever you're projecting
landfill life number one is the volume of waste acceptance typically you look
at that on an annual basis number two is you look at your compaction in other
words how densely can you compact the waste into the landfill a lot of sites
call that airspace utilization factor so if council recalls last year we came
forward with a purchase for a piece of equipment going from this compactor to
this compactor into the naked eye that may not seem like a big deal it's about
a four hundred thousand dollar up charge in terms of that bigger piece of
equipment but that piece of equipment weighs about 40,000 pounds more what that
leads to is you get about 250 pounds more waste per cubic yard whenever you
compact it when you start looking at the scale of waste that we're accepting that
allows you to improve your efficiency of airspace utilization by 23 percent what
that is equivalent to strictly from airspace utilization is your you would
essentially have to divert about 66,000 tons of waste to equal that efficiency
gain in terms of compaction that was the biggest change in terms of some of our
growth rates these are some of the things in terms of waste acceptance that
were adjusted we adjusted these to actuals these are not actual projections
this is what our growth rates were last year so the compaction plus the updated
projections as well as some landfill settlement that's what got us those
extra eight years one wonders you know this awesome to you know come up with
that in such a short amount of time and one wonders what else might sort of you
know be discovered as you keep studying this I would just if I could just you
know make the comment that there's kind of disinformation out there permit is
not the same thing as landfill expansion right if you get the permit doesn't mean
you have to expand landfill it permits you to do it and and landfill expansion
does not mean collect more trash or recycle less they're just not those are
just not linked it's just creating a capacity I am very interested in the
answer the ultimate answer to to councilmember Briggs questions about
what does it cost to finish the process versus what would it be if we ended up
kicking the can recyclable can down the road and you know picking it up at a
later point that's kind of a financial decision you know I'd be interested in
knowing that but I don't see this in any way affecting our making constructive
policy choices regarding recycling and composting like I think that's that's an
astute point is that the permit and diversion programs are not mutually
exclusive that they must exist together typically I'll kind of give you a visual
this is off of the EPA website it's waste management hierarchy is in an ideal
scenario this is what you're looking at from a waste management standpoint is
before waste or recycling finds its way into a can our citizens our businesses
are doing everything they can to reduce consumption or reduce waste try to
reuse as much as they can once it gets to us it's it's down to the city to
recycle and compost as much as we can energy recovery is something that is
typically linked incineration but by the time you get the treatment of disposal
you want to try to minimize that and that's certainly this strategy we want
to employ that comes with a number of trade-offs policy decisions for the
council to mr. Meltzer's point you do have to have disposal capacity and our
our goal with this is to manage that asset as efficiently as we can and to
make sure we maximize the landfill life whether the remaining life is 20 years
or 80 years okay I've got a couple comments anybody else
yes council member so again well like council members are sending some
questions in advance and and I just want to highlight these things when when it's
discussed what we're doing our approach money that sort of thing things
important not to go from 2018 forward 2017 forward I think it's important to
look at it holistically and so for as many hits there's misses and so I 10
million dollars but you look at we spent four point so there's five point three
million that was spent on the rubble process and etc and then there's still
debt service 4.1 million to go then we tried the sugary drinks on the on the
trash that cost us two hundred thousand dollars plus then there's the building
materials recovery we were drilling down mining that's 14 million so you talk
about 10 minutes 14 million dollars is what we projected to lose if we would
have kept going continued down that road and so for me I think it's it's one
thing to say hey let's try this let's try that but those aren't all hits right
and those are there's people that that sat on this council that made those
decisions and I don't know what fed into that and how they got there but the fact
of the matter is but for the current leadership and in highlighting some
things to get us to where we have more hits than misses we were on a on a
dangerous course and so I would encourage this body to again take that
into consideration when you're talking about hey let's try this let's try that
there's misses out there and we've racked up quite a bill in trying to
avoid things and then experimentation and sampling and I respect that and I
don't think that's I think hey you you make the best decision you can with the
knowledge you have but I think now that we're on a more solid course I'm gonna
advocate for that because I think the taxpayers deserve that and I don't think
we should be experimenting to that degree regularly to try to navigate
those the what is inevitable we're gonna have trashes recycling is not a hundred
percent we don't know that China's ever going to go back to taking the same
amount of recyclables they have increasing the capacity of recycling is
not the same as the quality of recycling coming in so that to me or I just would
rather us ultimately get to those hard conversations about how can we better
increase recycling the value of that recycling and understand who are our
partners where that's going those sort of things and understand we've had
significant spending towards trying to extend the life of the landfill and
we've done a lot of things and now we're we're on to more solid consulting
reports that say hey buy this piece of equipment and that produces and and so
I'd like to continue that trajectory words it's planned and managed and
forecasted well versus you know I read a newspaper article that said diet coke
makes you know trash disappear faster then just thinks what I think what it
does to your body go ahead councilmember don't try this at home go ahead go ahead
yes member well I'm in their protein agreement with councilmember house but
and a couple of other things to consider is if we don't expand where we're at
right now we're going to have to expand somewhere else in the future and the
not in my backyard is always a problem there are a couple of older former sites
here in town that were landfills in the past every time you move into new area
you're going to have that the NIMBY attitude that's going to be a big
problem you know we want to be is use our resources as best as possible we have a
certain amount of fixed cost out at the landfill that that's right now why we
are taking in some from other cities and we will balance that over time so that
we cover those fixed costs without adding to our rate payers and you know
as our city grows we'll get to the point that we won't need to have outside
income coming in because our will be able to spread that out but if we were
to stop right now taking all of it we're looking at a very significant amount of
increase to our current rate payers if we weren't supplemented about taking
some from outside sources I'll leave it at that all right well I'm gonna have
the last word then this is a very simple issue to me this is a local control
issue local control in the sense that as long as we expect to be a city here
unless to me it's a local control issue for others it's an issue of how can we
force is not the right word but how can we get more policies towards recycling
and it seems like some people think the only way to do that is to well you're
not gonna have a landfill you're gonna be forced to do it good heavens we've
worked so hard on implementing policies and as far as what the 10 million dollars
could do in the past who knows I mean hindsight is always easier but I'm glad
that somebody had the foresight to think about well 20 30 year planning we've
talked about our water supply and putting it on a 40 to 50 year plan so I
will tell you right now unless you've not been out to the landfill to drop
off loads of debris trash is not cheap trash is not cheap at all and so to to
put our future generations in a place to where we've made a decision to force
them down a certain path to me I can't I can't do that because what we do is we
provide them the flexibility and the freedom to make the decisions that
reflect at that time the values of the community regarding all kinds of issues
and in this case it's its waste disposal if we didn't have a landfill you are our
wastewater rates that some of us here all of us here work very hard to make
sure we keep our utility rates in line and to even reduce them if possible so
sometimes I get a little confused on some of some of the the back and forth
to walk away from a 10 million dollar investment that's what this is it's an
investment in a process that is not an easy process I think would be
unfortunate and I'm not willing to do that because what we get for that or
what we get for the remaining value which we don't know what that is that's
a good question what is the remaining value that it will take is we get the
opportunity and the flexibility if we need it as a city to expand I mean
councilmember Melcer I think your your comments are spot-on I think they're not
it's it's not an either or it's not a an exclusive choice that has to be made I
think you can go down two tracks and we can have the best recycling program in
the in the in the state and still have this permit and not go one foot over 80
feet but what it says though is depending on how this region grows and
the city of Denton grows I don't know what your projections are based upon but
by 2036 it's probably gonna be 250,000 people at least is what the
conservative projections are in fact they're saying 200 250 by 2030 or
somewhere like that that's a doubling of our population so I'm not here
advocating that we've just become you know Denton's known as the landfill of
Denton County and what I'm advocating for is that we maintain as much as we
can the local control of the utilities that we've decided as a community are
ones that we want to have local control over and we're not forced to go above
other councils can make certain policy decisions within in those confines but I
think it would be misguided to to stop the process now assuming that that
landfill will eventually be 230 and it may be in 50 years but it will only get
there because future councils have made policy decisions so I'm for flexibility
because I think I can trust the values of the community moving forward that
they will they will implement policies that reflect those values just like this
council is implementing policies now that reflect its base and we're not
always unanimous in fact sometimes we're pretty well split but we've got ten
million dollars in this process and the process is not going to get easier and
our trash requirements are not going to get less and our population isn't going
to decrease so I think councilmember Meltzer I would just rest on your
comments and that is this isn't about an exclusive choice that needs to be made
and that we do have the opportunity to have that flexibility but with other
data that needs that would be good to come forward to be able to make more
informed policy decisions when it gets down to the specific ones about height
and things such as that so I appreciate your your effort in that you know and I
read the comments out on the TCEQ website about you know the the opposition
and I understand it I get it don't necessarily agree with a lot of it
because don't read what I don't disagree what I don't agree with is we can do
both we can have the permit without the expansion and all those things that
people are advocating for zero waste and the like those still can be policy
objectives that we can try to achieve we don't have to do that by kind of a
twisting of the arm of word you're not going to have this so you've got to do
this instead of let's do it let's enter into it voluntarily because I trust I
trust the policymakers so that's where we are councilmember Duff's not here so
he's not really weighed in you know I've heard one person councilmember Armature
express a desire to just stop the process right now altogether I have not
heard that at that level of language from anyone else so the direction seems
to me to continue to move forward unless some data comes forward and it may be
the you know if it's another 10 million dollars that that's going to be a
question we need to we need to talk about and some of the other data to
refine the data on you know the expansion the extending the landfill
based upon you know different types of programs that may be implemented so to
that we'll certainly bring back some additional data to council I've been
working with PSC and Lloyd Gosling on what it was gonna look like to finish
out this process so we'll circle back with council yeah that's important I
think that's important yeah okay thank you very much let's take a five or ten
minute break we'll come back at 1 30
welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday January the
8th 2019 it is 1 30 we'll move on to our next work session work session report
excuse me a work session report agenda item 3c receive a report hold discussion
and provide staff direction regarding the phase 2 update to the existing dent
municipal electric energy risk management policy mayor City Council
thank you I'm back to talk about the our risk management policy if you recall
when I was hired here a little over a year now that was one of the most
important critical things I think on the plate was to update our our risk
management policy it had been it had gotten stale the original policy was
adopted in 2014 and and that was something I took to heart came back early
last year and you approved in May an update we call it a phase one update at
the energy risk management policy so we took care of a lot of the more obvious
things that needed to be done quickly got those in place and said we were
going to come back later with a complete comprehensive phase 2 update we would
address all of the recommendations made by Deloitte and I think we even had some
from Enterprise risk consulting and and that was done so I've got a short report
for you today that I've asked Phil Deepestina of DME staff to give Phil is
our middle office if you remember we have a front office middle office and
back office middle office is sort of the as I'd like to call it a traffic cop for
overseeing risk policy for the utility the checks and balances he's got more
than two decades of experience doing just that he's a risk management
professional I was surprised to have one on our staff but he he oversaw the risk
program at aircott for a number of years he also was involved heavily at what was
the largest electric utility in the country at one time in the West managing
their risk management policy and he's done front office middle office back
office so so I think he's the he's the right individual so Phil with that I'll
let you up here and then maybe I can step in afterwards and and and close it
up and help him answer any questions or inquiries just reminded this is just a
work session so we were here to gather input we made the same presentation to
public utility board so you know if you have some input in the foreseeable
future if you could get that to me either today or later and and we'll clean
that thing up and and bring it back for formal approval okay great
good afternoon my name is Philip de Pastina I work for in DME as George was
indicating what we're doing in this phase is trying to incorporate the
balance of the recommendations that Deloitte in Deloitte's December study of
2017 their recommendations for improving the risk management process at DME as
well as incorporating some recommendations from enterprise risk
consultants and in our earlier risk policy that you approved in May of last
year there were a number of sections within that policy that indicated we
were still working on implementing those and we've tried to address that those in
this version we're trying to be more objective and and provide more
qualitative quantitative measures of success for the Emo and so one of the
things that we've added to this version of the risk policy are some more
quantifiable objectives for the performances program include reducing the
risk and by risk we're talking about the volatility associated with prices and
volume variability of our resources and load to compare as Deloitte kind of
recommended compare our actual energy costs to the ERCOT annual average as a
proxy for for a market price and then comparing DME's average cost to those of
other municipal utilities in the state
in addition we've we've added some language in the in the policy as far as
what the responsibilities are for the risk oversight committee which is made
up of the city management and the DME management primarily as well as the city
auditor and the legal department and we've added additional details on
responsibilities of these different groups that together manage this
program that George mentioned the front middle and back office functions the
front office is are the group of people that manage the day-to-day energy
portfolio there sometimes you call those energy traders there and we've got a
list of more clearly articulate what they actually do and similarly for the
middle office which is mostly what I do the kind of activities that I should be
doing all the time or regularly and then the back office which are the people
that do the accounting and the settlements of these transactions we've
tried to identify more clearly what exactly they do in addition most of the
decisions that the Emo makes require the support of rather sophisticated
mathematical models and so to ensure or to better ensure that the chance that
those models are performing accurately that everyone understands the inputs
and outputs of those things we're instituting some risk controls over
those models and periodic review of the performance of those models we've added
an appendix to this version that describes the inherent risks that go
along with managing an energy portfolio price and those include price risk volume
risk liquidity credit the model risk that I just mentioned and regulatory risk
the uncertainty that the ERCOT rules could change or the state could pass laws
that we that aren't currently on the books the way the ERCOT market works is
we essentially have to buy everything from the grid from ERCOT and we sell all
of the resources that we have under contract to ERCOT and and ERCOT
measures those on a 15 minute basis and to the extent that those don't match
exactly the dollars don't cancel out and the difference is what we call the open
position and what that represents is our exposure to changes to market conditions
in this version of the risk policy we've added a section to clarify that as we get
closer and closer to the delivery point our goal is to have less and less
exposure to the market question from councilmember Briggs if you could just
clarify for me because I want to make sure I understand so we have contracts
say wind solar all of our other renewable contracts and then the deck as
well all at different prices or certain prices and then so we purchase all of
our energy from ERCOT one day and this is what this office does correct and so
depending on the contracts that we have where they'd be over or under what we
purchased that day that gap is what you're calling open position yes okay
thank you and and so this is a very important concept that this is what
we're exposed to on the market even though we we agree to in our PPAs power
purchase agreements to pay a certain price to these companies that sell us
the power when we deliver it to ERCOT it's at a different price the price that
changes every 15 minutes throughout the year and so the value to us is based on
the ERCOT value and and our payment to them is is kind of a disconnected
slightly disconnected number that's fixed for the life of the contract and
so going back to phase one and when we looked at the the risk in the amount of
money that we were saving with this office and is that are those the
amounts that we used when we were getting those savings with the the open
position plus the the amount of money that we spend for the EMO department
you're talking about how how Deloitte calculated the savings yes I think the
way Deloitte did it was to take the total cost that we were paying for power
and comparing it to the ERCOT average price for the year plus a I think a
25% adder and that was the basis of whatever number they came up with five
to ten million in savings okay thank you okay so in an in an effort to try to be
a little more quantitative we're proposing in this version to Institute
a statistical measure called we call them at risk metrics which try to
incorporate a number of different dimensions of the market prices the
volatility of prices the variability of the energy that's delivered through the
power contracts and the variability of our load and we take all these factors
and we come up with a statistical metric that's sometimes called value at risk or
bar or cash flow at risk it kind of depending on some of the assumptions and
how you calculate it and we're gonna we're proposing to compare that number
to a what often is called a customer risk tolerance and we're picking 10% of
our average annual cost of electricity for that and when that at-risk number
exceeds that 10% number which is about 15 million dollars that would trigger a
requirement that the email comes and talks to the risk committee and explains
what's going on in the market what's causing that aberration and what their
plans are to react to it and if that metric exceeds 125% of that risk
tolerance number which is about 19 million dollars that would trigger a
requirement that the email came to the council in the pub and again explain
what's going on and discuss the the options we have you know these aren't
real dollars we're not saying that we're expecting to exceed our budget by 15
million dollars or 19 million dollars it's you can kind of look at as a risk
as an insurance risk and the way to think about it would be if there is a
five to ten percent chance that over the next twelve months our cost could go up
or down by this this number this 15 million or 19 million dollar number
then we'd come and we'd discuss explain why what could happen and what could be
done to ensure ourselves against that I hope I I hope that doesn't isn't too
technical well it's a little technical but I want to know because these exposure
elements are put in how frequently have we in the past hit them it's kind of
hard to say because we don't have a system right now to actually calculate
that on a daily basis I've done it manually and it's it's a lot of work a
lot of spreadsheets and potential for a lot some errors from time to time but
roughly one if you're looking at a day-to-day change you might expect one
day out of the month the prices could change by this order of magnitude or
the the potential for value of our open position could change by by this amount
we're looking at not just a one-day situation which is more appropriate for
trading but we're looking at the rolling 12-month period okay so implementing
this is part of the big that big database that we've talked about ETRM
energy trading risk management system that will automate it and allow us to
calculate that number every day another part of the activities that the emo does
but hasn't been articulated before is what we call congestion management and
that's basically the how full the transmission wires are DME buys power at
kind of an average North Texas price that's called the North Zone price but
that's what we pay ERCOT but when we deliver power to the grid we get
credited for the price at specific nodes wherever the generation actually is and
that that price is if the lines are kind of full that that price could be either
higher or lower than than the load price that we're paying ERCOT has a rather
elaborate system for managing these risks on a daily basis and multiple
times during the month they have auctions to buy these things that we
call congestion revenue rights or CC CRRs for up to three years in the future so
the emails constantly managing this price risk differential and and at at the
recommendation of enterprise risk consultants we've added a section to
this policy version that describes how we do that process the last major part
of the update is to provide a more formal process for implementing these
hedging activities that the MO does essentially buying insurance and this is
going to be implemented or we anticipate this to be implemented in conjunction
with the budget annual budget process looking out three years and looking at
that net open position each each month and different time periods during the
month each of those months we look out up to three years and develop a plan for
how we're going to manage that what kind of transactions we expect to do what
price targets were shooting for and the triggers that would cause those programs
to happen and then each time the risk management committee meets we come back
and review those those plans and the MO would update the committee on where we
are with them things are make us think we need to accelerate our hedging
activities or slow them down and by implementing that we think we'd have a
little more visibility of what the MO is doing there's some other miscellaneous
changes in this version of the risk policy changes to our organizational
chart and job titles requiring it or adding a little additional specificity
to the kinds of transactions that the MO is allowed to use in their hedging
activities and the addition of a kind of checklist to go through the benefits and
risks and financial and policy issues that are associated with implementing new
products or or using different market instruments to manage our open position
in addition to the things that are included in the risk policy itself in
this update there's a number of other recommendations that were included in
the Deloitte and the ERC recommendations and these are listed
here we're working on those and while they're not addressed in the risk
policy itself it's not like we've just forgotten them or ignored them we have
plans to address each each one of those attached to the AIS memo that was sent
out are a list of other things in addition to the risk policy itself and
the red line that shows the changes from the approved current approved policy to
this new proposed policy and they include a energy risk policy
implementation task status report where we've taken all the things that we could
find that have been recommended for the for DME to make changes to and provide
the status report of where we are on those and if you have questions about in
the policy itself or any of those other action items I'd be happy to answer them
yes just overall on the phase one with the for any of the items that have been
implemented just to clarify they haven't necessarily just been changed in wording
they've also been implemented if needed in in the office as well and so I'm
wondering how what difference you've seen that those those changes have made I
think we're working a little better together there's been better
coordination and you know we keep we can't guarantee results with the risk
policy other than the one guarantee we're trying to shoot for is no
surprises so if there's if there's trouble ahead or if there's unexpected
things coming up our goal with the risk policy is to have things in place to let
people know far enough advanced that we can we can address them and not say well
it's too late this has happened price you know our budget is going to be X
instead of Y okay thank you so thank you and so just to clarify when you say no
surprises I take it you don't mean we're gonna be able to predict the future with
absolute certainty every step of the way but instead you'll be able to limit it to
a finite number of possibilities and be prepared for every one at least as far as
assessing risk out in the future in the short term though you will know correct
what you know what what are going to be the outcomes of these of each short-term
decision made is that correct or correct correct me where I need correcting we
can be pretty confident about what's going to happen tomorrow we can't be
nearly as confident about what's going to happen for the whole the rest of the
year so the farther out in the future you go the greater the uncertainty but
it's not that we don't know anything about the future and we can see today
when things start to develop like we can see today just by reading things and
talking to ERCOT we can see that there's a developing concern about the summer and
prices and the number of power plants are being shut down or new plants that
are being deferred that there's growing concern about what on peak prices will
be in the summer and but you know there was that same concern last year and it
didn't materialize so so our goal here is to be is is to capture all the things
that we are aware of and let let people know what's going on as they develop so
that we don't come at the last minute and say oh you know things have changed
suddenly our budgets way out of kilter and it's too late to do anything about it
but here it is we don't we want to be able to give people a heads up so that
there's time to react to undesirable events yes yes thank you mayor pro tem
thank you mayor question on the open position and as to how it relates to
ERCOT in the zones because you said we're in the north zone does ERCOT have
different pricing for the zones is yes every 15 minutes it or changes ERCOT has
zillion prices but they have there's basically four load zones they carve up
the service area in Texas into big chunks and the average the prices in in
those areas and that's what load pays okay but every generator has its own
unique price too and they're called nodes and so load pays an average kind
of price all the all this everybody who's buying power in northern Texas is
paying the same price for a given 15-minute period okay but each
generator everywhere in the state is getting its own unique price for each
15-minute period are there certain areas that have the tend to be a lower sir
lower price in general I mean versus others and let me give you a little bit
some further into this understanding the direction I'm coming from if we're
buying is it the energy that comes from the deck that goes out and we sell it
we buy back off ERCOT would have that price difference we know exactly where
we're at on both of those but if we've got West Texas win in the price in West
Texas is is way down so we're we're selling at at a lower price to ERCOT and
yet we're paying at a higher price here is that anything that we need to look at
in our strategies as to where we get green energy in the future yes it is and
that's what that the earlier slide about the congestion management these are
instruments CR ours are instruments we can buy that are based on the
differential between two points and so we do have some resources in in West
Texas and that that CRR or congestion management process is designed to
protect us from those differences okay just a summary of the changes then
they're meant to increase the transparency of the emo energy
procurement activities we've tried to implement the remaining recommendations
of the Deloitte study the only qualification for that I say is about a
quarter of those recommendations were related to the ETRM system and we can't
implement those until we actually have a new one and so those are on hold
pending that we've tried to implement the feedback we've gotten from energy
risk and enterprise risk consultants which were primarily related to that
congestion management activity that we do I was told by purchasing that we
should be able to get that RFP out on the street in about two weeks this phase
two is not the end of all changes to the risk policy it's intended to be a
living document it's reviewed and it will be reviewed annually by the risk
management committee and brought back to the City Council and the pub annually
for reauthorization and review and will make changes as things change such as
this energy energy risk management ETRM system when it's implemented any other
questions any feedback that as you look thoroughly studied the changes in the
red line that you want us to make those may be forthcoming okay just passes
along to George and we'll incorporate them Councilmember armature has a
question I'll just I just say I just wanted to say that you know how how
pleased I am that the language of risk analysis has become such an integral
part of the kind of conversations we have about City Council and and I wanted
to shout out to our new city manager for you know being no I get no sorry he
doesn't count as new anyway it that our city manager and our auditor and also if
anyone remembers a Sarah but Gary he used to be up here on council you know
there was a time where the word risk was only coming from from one seat on
council now we're hearing it so often from over there so although you know it
can be a little unsettling for the public to hear risk risk risk it's
actually really it should be reassuring to people to understand that we're
talking about it and what risk analysis ultimately means is that yes you know we
don't know the future but there are ways to actually predict it so anyway I just
just just wanted to state that and how new that is and you know how grateful I
am that we talk about this now okay anything else thank you thank you
appreciate that that concludes our public work sessions we'll go into
closed session I believe we have a couple of recusals and correct me if I'm
wrong the councilmember armature I believe it's both a and B is that
correct and councilmember Melser it's just item B you will be present Friday
May is that correct all right okay we will now move into closed session
convenient closed session at 2 o 2 p.m. we will consider the following items
consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section five five one
point oh seven one deliberations regarding real property under Texas
government code section five five one point oh seven two deliberations regarding
why don't we have a personnel matters we got a personnel matter under Texas
government code section five five one point oh oh seven four okay all right okay
good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council
on Tuesday January the 8th 2019 it is 630 p.m. we do have a quorum so I'll
call this meeting to order and please stand if you're able with me to pledge
allegiance to the American in the Texas flag
our next item on the agenda we do not have any proclamations or
presentations so we'll move to presentations from members of the
public and agenda item three way 3a could you please play the review of
procedures for addressing the City Council
the Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of
conduct that applies to citizens as well as council members these rules were
enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum here is a brief
review of the rules that apply to citizen reports citizens will have four
minutes to give a scheduled citizen report and four minutes to give an open
mic report there will be an electronic bell when time has expired if the
remarks are not concluded by that time the citizen will be asked to stop
speaking if the citizen does not cease and a second request is made the mayor
will request to have the citizen removed from the council chamber citizens are
asked not to approach the dais if a citizen has papers or other materials to
hand out to the council please let the city secretary know in advance for
scheduled citizen reports the council may initiate discussion or questions
following each citizen report for non scheduled open mic citizen reports the
council may listen to citizens speak however because no notice of the subject
of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance the Texas open
meetings act limits any deliberation or decision by the council to a proposal to
place the item on a future agenda a statement of factual policy or a
recitation of existing policy citizens are asked to direct all remarks and
questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member please
refrain from making abusive personal impertinent profane or slanderous
remarks anyone who violates this council rule of procedure may be
immediately removed from the council chamber thank you in advance copies of
the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary our next agenda
item will be 3b which has received scheduled citizen reports from members
of the public we have one scheduled Beth honeycutt regarding a community
concern in neighborhoods if you'll come down state your name and address your
time will begin thank you dear council members my name is Beth honeycutt I live
at 1811 Greenwood Drive in the city of Denton in the Nottingham Woods area in a
neighborhood zone single-family residential the picture being shown is
of my neighbor's house this is my first time to speak before the city council
I've lived in Denton almost 40 years at first as a student and then as a
homeowner my husband Randy and I elected to stay in Denton to raise our family
because of the community we discovered here our two adult children live or have
lived in apartments here in Denton and they absolutely are in the right places
with others who want apartment living and the amenities that go along with
apartment living I'm here today because of an issue in my neighborhood now which
has a direct impact on that feeling of community and the subject of apartments
in fact one of my dear friends a local apartment owner suggested I come talk to
you because we've been discussing how zoning is here for a reason I know the
vitality of neighborhoods rises and falls so when my neighbor passed away I
wondered what family might move into this 3,000 square foot spacious home an
individual bought the house and lived there for a little bit rented some of
the rooms and then he moved out while a lot of reconstruction was being done I
understand he applied for an interior remodel permit and a garage conversion
imagine our surprise when there was a lot of electrical work done to
accommodate multiple living circumstances in there and we know for a
fact of at least two apartments in this house the owner moved out and all these
unrelated people moved in I don't have a family next door I now have an
apartment next door in a house that is owned as single-family residents after
being woken up several times between midnight 6 a.m. with various parties
arguments and loud discussions going on about 15 feet from my bedroom window I
called the police to report the disturbances I spoke at length with the
city attorney about my options I talked with Allison the assistant director of
development services about the current zoning and code enforcement and I even
went over to the tenants to ask them to stop partying outside after midnight I
got the phone number for one tenant so I could text her when the partying was too
loud and I still had to go over during the Christmas break to ask the tenants
to turn off their backyard light because once again it so illuminates my yard
that I can no longer sit in the dark and look at the stars the tenants I spoke
with talked to the tenants on the other side of the house that evening who later
turned off the lights because the light panel was on their side of the house by
the way the owner no longer lives there he does get some junk mail he has one
of the tenants collecting it that is proof to anyone that he lives there it
is totally misleading I feel like I am an unpaid property manager for someone
else's apartment I pay taxes on my property I have roots here and the
tenants next door have no feeling of ownership they don't water so the lawn
and many bushes have died these tenants have trash on the north and the west
side of the property now show no interest in cleaning it up multiple cars
lying the street my sense of neighborhood community is now
disregarded with one person having bought this house unilaterally converting
it to an illegal apartment right next door to me in blatant violation of its
current zoning I understand change and growth are part of the population
density of this city and it can cause growing pains for longtime residents but
as a citizen of this city I also have rights I bought property over 27 years
ago raised my children here in a good school district thought I'd own this
house and retire in this community yet one person can just buy up the house
next door turn it into an apartment maybe get his wrist slapped for code
violations and that's it my options are to leave my home of 27 years because one
person and on his own turned a single-family residence into an apartment
and if that's a message that the city of Denton is wanting to give to its
residents I'd like to hear that from you tonight if you no longer care about the
individuals who pay the taxes and make up the neighborhoods that once made this
community a community to live in then let me know now please tonight I ask that
you consider making firm my request now that this property at 1815 Greenwood
Drive remain zoned as a single-family residence and that that recognition
should run with the land I ask that the currently designated single-family
residents zoning be honored I don't want the business owner to sell to another
business owner and the situation to go unresolved that doesn't help my
neighborhood or this community can you help me thank you
Councilmember Briggs has a question or comment well thank you for the
presentation and for letting us know I hadn't heard of it before but so you're
saying that the owner has divided the home and they have separate meters and
so there's there's different units within this the one home I have not
actually been up close enough to look at the house but yes we talked to the
tenants there I've talked to tenants that both live in the garage conversion
and I've talked to tenants live on the other side of the house I have been a
where that there have been multiple cars parking around the corner in the
driveway all over this property and it's evident that is no longer a single
family residence okay thank you city manager or city attorney do you know if
our zoning enforcement has been here to this property and if so can we get an
update or follow up on this issue sure I'm not sure if they what the status is
but we can certainly it sounds like she's talked to several different
departments and so I'm wondering if we can get an update on that and if they've
provided any solutions we'll follow up with some correspondence at some point
we just need to look into it this first time we're hearing this tonight yeah okay
thank you first of all sorry for what you're experiencing and so you're
certain that the the people who live in this house they're paying rent is that
yes yeah we have spoken with the tenants there in the garage conversion and they
are paying $1,200 a month in rent they told us they paid several thousand
dollars down as a deposit for this place and they don't even have a stover and
oven that works in their garage conversion at this point yeah so it well
I'm surprised and I mean I'm sorry that it's gone on for this long and I'm gonna
reveal my own ignorance in saying not being a lawyer but you know I'm surprised
that it's not a legal matter and so I would I'm not asking you don't worry to
explain it to me but but now is my ask for you know
councilmember Briggs question about code you know our own code enforcement is
this you know if this is a legal activity and not just a violation of you
know city specific code then this is something that I would think would be
easily taken care of but anyway if we could get an explanation of the law on a
city state even federal whatever law we need to know about these legal apartment
situations so you know we can find out what can be done about this because it
sounds like if everything you say is true that sounds like this is not really
serving anybody it's not and my concern is that it wouldn't just be my
neighborhood but this is something that's going to be affecting the entire
city it's just it does happen to affect me directly and so I wanted to bring it
to all of you sure yeah thank you pretty upsetting yeah if if this person can get
away with it I guess anybody else could too right so yeah thank you
councilmember husband real quick question could you give me the address
again the address of this house is 1815 Greenwood Drive okay thank you thank you
thank you very much and well certainly city managers committed to looking into
the specifics of this to find a solution absolutely and how will someone get back
in touch with me I'll do that yeah if you could just leave you somehow leave
your contact number with the officer there and we'll make sure that somebody
gets back with you okay thank you thank you very much at that ends our scheduled
portion of the citizens report so we'll go on to additional citizen reports which
is commonly known as the open mic and there's two slots open so we do have two
cards it's a four-minute time limit and because it's an open mic agenda item the
council is prohibited from discussion so we I will call our first speaker which
will be mr. Willie husband if you'll come down state your name and address
your time will begin okay okay all right then our next speaker is we should not
a Montgomery sorry I'm sorry I probably really didn't do that very well oh well
thank you and if you'll state your name and address and we'll start your time at
that time certainly I'm Queen Janata Montgomery known as better known as
Queen J and I am at 201 inman Street okay thank you so much for having me
today I am one of the people that's over the women's march and I'd like to
extend an invitation to the City Council to come out and support us and it's
actually gonna be on January the 19th and it's gonna take place at 11 o'clock
and I thought we were gonna be on the agenda today but that's okay we're just
excited to have time not tonight to be able to say this thank you guys so much
though that's all I have okay thank you tonight thank you okay that ends our
agenda item for presentations from members of the public so we'll move on
to the consent agenda I don't believe we had any items pulled mayor Pro Tem move
approval the consent agenda councilmember Briggs second councilmember
Cuspeth I saw you come up for a request to speak was that no it's just been a
couple of weeks and so I was trying to hit the wrong button I'm relearning okay
all right all right okay so we had a motion in a second for the consent
agenda which is agenda item four and the subsequent agenda items underneath
agenda item four so let's vote on the board please motion carries 6-0 yeah
Jane on that the vote board it shows the citizen report so if we could maybe
bring up the vote board for consent agenda agenda item four
all right so I see the mayor Pro Tem if you could go ahead and signal your second
and then councilmember Briggs if you could and now let's vote on the board
please
motion carries 6-0 moving on to items for individual consideration agenda item
5a is considered nominations appointments to the city boards
commissions and committees I believe there was a an updated sheet passed out
in our work session room and also wanted to do we have a Jane do you have a
presentation on that or just the ones that were on the list that were passed
out and if there's anybody that has any additional nominations that were not on
the list we would present those at this time seeing no additional nominations
chair would look for motion on the nominees that were presented earlier at
the council work session as updated councilmember Briggs do we need to do
you want me to list everyone's name yeah why don't you go ahead and name the ones
that are being nominated yes ma'am that'd be great idea thank you okay so we
have for the committee on persons with disabilities Val Vera Jessica Spears
Williams Judy Thurman Henry Jason Beth Kirby Kirk Kirk B Allison Kelly and Val
Morgan and I move approval of all of these okay councilmember Meltzer I
second all right we have a motion a second on the nominees as presented
a motion carries six zero moving on to agenda item 5b consider adoption of
ordinance approving a compromise settlement agreement implementing the
mediated terms of a claim settlement litigation stalled Cleopatra Burke
Bickler versus the city of Denton and I believe councilmember armature will
recuse herself yes oh okay okay all right thank you yes okay yes
that's alright okay yes I'm sorry where oh yeah here he comes thank you okay
thank you okay sorry I'm nervous
thank you
good evening council members my name is Stephanie Lang I'm from the city
attorney's office I'm the deputy city attorney there and I have a brief
presentation for you regarding the Burke Bickler versus the city of Denton matter
this is an employment discrimination claim that was alleged against the city
of Denton through officer Burke Bickler's attorney Austin P Campbell
with the run Wiley PC firm this matter was mediated on December 14th a
settlement was reached which was subject to your approval upon the presentation
to the City Council on December 18th City Council requested that the city
attorneys proceed with the settlements and basically prepare a compromise
settlement agreement and put that on the agenda for today pending the final
finalization of the settlement agreement officer Burke Bickler through her
attorney filed a lawsuit to prevent the statute of limitations from running and
also to preserve her legal claims that she may have had against the city at
that particular time you received a copy of the settlement agreement earlier
today in the closed session the city attorney's office discussed the terms of
that agreement with you in closed session for confidentiality reasons that
settlement the terms of that settlement cannot be discussed in open session
today disclosure of the terms without a court order or subpoena are a requirement
under the Texas Public Information Act could subject the city to breach of
contract liability so I'm here today with the city's attorney's office and
we're recommending that the City Council approve the settlement agreements thank
you any questions for staff seeing none mayor pro tem I move approval
councilmember Briggs second we have a motion in a second for agenda item 5b
let's vote on the board please
motion carries four to one thank you so now we're gonna go to our public
hearings portion and I'm gonna make just a slight move only because we've got
three public hearings on the agenda tonight the first two are related to the
woodlands which is a zoning request and also an SUP request and I think the
majority of you here tonight are for that request we have a very brief agenda
item see which is back behind you all that is probably going to take about 10
or 15 minutes I think if that long so what I'm going to do is move them up
just so that we can get them out of the way so that the rest of the evening we
can we can spend you know addressing the issues and concerns of those next to
agenda items so what I will do now is call the public hearing for hold a
public hearing consider adoption of an ordinance granting approval in
accordance with chapter 26 of the Texas Park and Wildlife Code of the non park
use of a part of Lake Forest Park etc for an easement etc I will go ahead and
open the public hearing so that I don't forget to do that I guess I should have
given you a heads up sorry about that it's okay just sort of made that
decision about five minutes ago
mayor city council Gary pack and director of Parks and Recreation here
tonight before you to talk about a Lake Forest Park proposal specifically in
regards to a good Samaritan East track property that is proposed to be
development immediately east of Lake Forest Park back in November park board
had this item for discussion at that time they were looking for three
easements one for the actual Duffy's way to get into the park and extend Duffy's
way a drainage easement as well as a sanitary sewer easement after that
discussion staff got together with numerous departments in the city to talk
about that to figure out a better solution and then subsequently after that
met with the developer to talk about a better proposal and therefore came out
of the resolution that the sanitary sewer was only really needed it was a
better plan it reduced potentially any additional traffic through the park
property and it provided access directly to and from the development within itself
the sanitary sewer easement would is proposed to go underneath Duffy's way as
you can see in red go underneath the linear trail in the in the park and go
through the woods the the area underneath Duffy's would be bored as
well as the area through the woods would be bored as well so there at discussions
with the developer there would be no impact to the trees our staff our urban
forester would be specifically looking to make sure that the trees are not
impacted so we can monitor that situation here's a little bit of a zoom
in in regards to that there will be a manhole we specifically ask the manhole
not be placed within the green space which could be used for just general
open space play so that would be on the perimeter of the wooded area the area of
dedication is point one eight one of an acre approximately seven hundred and
eighty square feet based on forty thousand dollars an acre that works out
to be approximately a seventy two hundred dollar fee that would be paid as
a reimbursement for that process in discussion with that value DCAD was
appraised at approximately twenty five thousand nine hundred seventy dollars the
appraisal was a little over forty thousand four hundred and sixty two
dollars the purchase price was forty thousand oh two four so roughly forty
thousand standard in the past has been an 80% value for subsurface easements
so there's been some discussion there this one is a hundred percent so it's a
little bit higher in regards to that value if we determined that formula based
off 80% I think there's about a fourteen hundred dollar difference on on that
amount fourteen hundred dollars which way it would be less if we went to 80%
okay yeah okay councilmember Briggs I believe has a question so my question is
about the trees and you did say that they said there would not be any impact
to the current the trees that are there so I just want to make sure that that
means that nothing comes out and the construction machinery or equipment will
be away far enough from the root zone so that the damage will not occur and if it
does do we have in place some sort of reimbursement some sort of damage policy
to make sure that if they do that they will pay for that so there's an impact
for any trees or for mitigation purposes but just a point of clarification this
area in here in the wooded area would not be impacted there may be one tree
maybe two trees here along the trail that might have to be pulled out and
replaced if those because they're gonna open cut that sidewalk and replace the
sidewalk those two trees would be replaced if they are if they don't make
it through the transition do you know what type of trees they are I don't have
that offhand but I could give that to you okay thank you yes ma'am okay any
other questions for staff we have opened the public hearing I believe we have one
card if mr. Fletcher come down and
good evening mayor and council my name is Thomas Fletcher 5750 Genesis Court
Frisco Texas 75034 I am the engineer for the owner and developer and I just
wanted to stand before you and let you know that I'm available to answer any
questions I appreciate we've been working with the staff the parks
department parks board for the last several months and just wanted to let
you know that I'm here to answer any questions that you may have all right any
questions for the applicant Councilmember Amater yeah can you speak to what will
be the price range of these homes right now the home builder that we're talking
with I would say that the price range would probably start in the mid 300s but
again we're still in the you know in the early process of the of the development
process of course getting the approval for the sanitary sewer easement is
paramount of moving the project forward but just at this point with the builders
that we're talking about when you look at the land costs when you look at the
development cost I would say that the starting price point of these homes
would be over 300,000 okay councilmember Briggs a question for you about the
trees you heard our conversation but noticing that it is in a wetlands area
and I assume ESA and so from your engineering perspective I just want to
make sure that whatever environmental clearance is needed has been done and
that the wetlands or whatever project you're doing will not infringe or do
any damage to that area that's correct and that's that's the reason for the
proposed that's the primary reason for the proposed bore through the the creek
in the wetlands area the ESA this this property the park property actually has
the it's shown there the wetland mitigation easement on it which is also
encompasses the ESA the riparian buffer so the bore pits that would be excavated
for the boring equipment would be done outside of these areas the you know the
bore machinery would bore put the casing pipe in and then the sanitary sewer pipe
would would be installed through that without having to get into those ESA
areas or disturb the trees the sewer line itself would be roughly six feet
below the flow line of the creek so it is quite deep in this area so we would
protect and will protect the ESA in the wetland areas from from impacts so what
about the root system as you bore through it right generally generally as
long as you're only impacting when you're talking about a board the
sanitary sewer line is only going to be an eight inch diameter pipe the casing
pipe for that will likely be 15 inches so you're talking about a 15 inch trench
or bore that's going through that area the percentage of roots that that would
actually impact is going to be relatively small there is stipulations
or there are stipulations that if there were any trees to to die the the
mitigation requirement would be one and a half times the caliper inches so if we
did impact a tree it caused it to decline in health and and and and die
then you know if that tree was 12 inches we would be responsible for 18 inches
reimbursement to the city and that would either be through a tree planting or
through payment to at $125 per caliper inch for mitigation and would that
requirement be two three-year requirement because damage isn't
immediately shown to the tree right generally there is a time frame
associated with that and you know we would work with the city and the city's
urban forester to to go out there and monitor that generally with with boring
for utility lines you rarely see where the it has enough impact to the root
system to where it would actually cause the tree to decline and die so we don't
anticipate that but we will work with the city staff and the urban forestry
department to make sure that we're monitoring that closely and if
something were to occur it's accounted for okay thank you welcome any other
questions for the applicant seeing none thank you thank you this is a public
hearing anybody else wishing to speak on this matter this item please come down
to state your name and address and your time will begin Diana legate 1019 alien
Street what kind of materials are in the pipe as being put into this ground how
extensive is the wetland area are you going to have a wildlife biologist come
survey that area thank you you have a response to that the construction
materials that are used their standard construction materials for sanitary sewer
construction the casing pipe would be a steel coated casing pipe the sanitary
sewer pipe itself would be PVC these are all the standard materials that are
required by the city for any development throughout the city thank you all right
this is a public hearing no blue card is required anybody else wishing to speak
anybody else wishing to speak customer bridge do you I'm gonna close the public
hearing is that okay okay all right one more time anybody wishing to speak on
this item okay I will now close the public hearing councilmember Briggs so I
don't see dr. banks here but I'm just curious if the the material that they're
using to go it's two different kind I know the the steel under the creek if
that is gonna matter to the water will that be a an issue or the type of
material that they bore under under the creek we can certainly have dr. banks
Deb Biera work with Gary and his crew just to verify that for you well happy
to do that I'm just curious if they have already been working with him on this
project if there's any wetland go ahead Todd
the city engineer these are very typical materials so this PVC pipe would go
inside the steel pipe the steel pipe is very common we use it for water lines as
well so steel is a very safe material we've used it a very long time we use
it to put drinking water through for all of us to drink much less but plants or
other materials might be impacted by it okay thank you okay so you know the
request councilmember Husspeth move approval mayor Pro Tem the second you
have a motion to second for agenda item 6c vote please
motion carries six zero appreciate everybody who's here for those other two
items appreciate your accommodation and your patience on that thank you very
much so we will now move on back to our regularly scheduled agenda order which
is agenda item 6a you bet you bet thank you 6a and before I call this this I'm
not sure we've got a several cards to speak we've got a lot of cards that have
been delivered that were requesting not to speak and so we'll probably it's
going to take a while so we'll probably take a break about 730 at 745 just to
give everybody sort of a heads up and also I'm going to call both of these
agenda items together a and B because they're they're basically closely
related they're intertwined and in that vein of course most of you signed up for
both of those and they're both separate public hearings but we're going to hear
them together so I'm just going to say technically legally you have an
opportunity to speak for this the double amount of time that you would have which
I think a public hearing is what three minutes what's public hearing three or
four it's four generally three if there's numerous speakers the council
can decide to look at three so what I'm gonna ask you I don't want to make a
hard fast rule to say hey you got three minutes but I think probably most of
your comments have to do on both of them so if you could keep your comments you
know concise as far as on both of those agenda items and we'll we'll go ahead
and set the timer because technically you'd have four and four which would be
eight we'll set it for we'll set it for five minutes which is a lot so that's a
long time and once you get up here to start talking five minutes is a long time
so just appreciate your patience in this and and your respect and we're going to
get through this in a nice orderly fashion so I will call both of them
together but they will be voted on separately and to address the issue there
was a question asked and if I'm doing this out of order to let me know yeah
there was a question asked on the last public hearing we had on December I
believe it was the fourth where this was postponed to this evening we did have a
stack of white cards that were submitted and there was a hundred and forty eight
in opposition to those agenda items posted in one in support those the way
those are going to be presented in the record which is will be the same way
these will be is what we're doing is we're making photocopies of the cards
and in the minutes we're placing that the total number in opposition or
support based upon the cards filled out not wishing to speak and then as an
attachment as an exhibit the copy of the card will be attached to those minutes
so they will be a part of that record instead of I don't know if y'all want to
stay here while I read probably a hundred cards into the record and I know
that our city staff probably doesn't want to type a hundred cards into the
record so we found that that's the best efficient way to do it for everybody's
time and involved yeah okay that'd be great yeah we'll pick that up just hand
it to the officer here thank you very much for that but we're still going to
do that as well so I just wanted to explain that to you I will go ahead now
and call the two public hearing items agenda item 6a is hold a public hearing
and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton Texas assigning an
initial zoning classification and use designation of neighborhood residential
6 with an overlay on approximately a hundred and eighteen point oh four acres
of land generally located north of East McKinney Street etc and now I also will
call agenda item 6b which is hold a public hearing and consider adoption of
an ordinance of the city of Denton Texas approving a specific use permit to allow
manufactured housing park with conditions on approximately a hundred and twenty six point one
acres so the presentations will be combined and the public hearing will be
combined but we will take separate votes so Richard good evening Richard can only
development services what I wanted to do tonight is go over both the zoning
request from rd5x to an initial zoning designation of nr6 on a hundred and
eighteen approximately a hundred and eighteen acres as well as an sgp or
specific use permit for manufactured housing community on twenty six point one
acres of land and I know I think in December at that meeting there there was
even some confusion about the difference in acreage and just wanted to clarify
that this portion of the site and you'll see here in a couple slides already has
the nr6 zoning so that's that's the difference that's the difference in the
acreage so the the area that doesn't have a zoning is is what they're seeking
the nr6 on the sgp is encompassing the entire the entire property again one
presentation two separate votes if the zoning is not approved then there would
actually would not need to be a vote on the on the sgp if the nr6 is not
approved as I stated the current zoning is is rd5x proposed zoning is is nr6
again you see that that strip of land when it was annexed some time ago had
received the the nr6 the nr6 zoning and so what they're looking to do is is
provide that over the entire site in order to facilitate a a manufactured
housing community just to give you a snapshot of the site plan that's
associated with this I'll get into more detail as part of the sgp but just
wanted to give you an idea as we're talking about the rezoning what that
what they're anticipating developing that with approximately 126 total acres
approximately 18 and a half is a little over 15 acres of open space 497
manufactured housing stands and six one-acre single-family lots and those
are those are along along Trinity with an overall density of approximately four
four units an acre real quick question on that so I can understand this the
total acres because you already got some that's rezoned is 126 acres correct or
already has zoning so when you take out the ESA and the open space which is
about 24 or 30 was at 34 acres so then the actual developable site is about 95
or 96 acres correct and probably even less than that because there's some
right-of-way dedication that's okay so if and I understand about density based
upon gross acres but if you take the net acres what is that what's that density
equate do you know I'd have to calculate it don't we do that later I just I just
want to make sure I understood because I know sometimes we talk about gross
acres and offsets and you can still put the same number of properties on the
gross acres even though you can't use them also I'll figure that out but I
appreciate that thank you
this is just a snapshot I know we have the we have the tables in the background
but I wanted to just make sure everyone was aware of kind of the the front to
what's currently permitted as part of the nr6 what could be permitted on the
entire site and and this just gives an idea of what what's allowed and what's
not you'll see a mix of primarily residential uses already five which is
really part of that default of that already 5x does provide for some some
additional uses you'll see those those highlighted in green for example they do
allow for instance outdoor recreation which has a broad definition of
question facilities nurseries kennels vet clinics and the like as well as a
single-family accessory interestingly enough mobile home our manufactured
housing developments are permitted within within the rd5 as of right
however that density is limited to point two point two units an acre criteria
for approval of the rezoning that it conforms to the future land use element
of the debt and comprehensive plan 2030 and the the rezoning facilitates
adequate public facilities transportation water source schools
parks and other public requirements and public convenience and so the first one
the Denton 2030 plan the current land use on the property is low residential
which which describes being on the rural fringe permitting between one and four
units an acre when we initially looked at this we found that the NR six would
be inconsistent with the land use however with the overlay being applied
on the property reducing the density to four with that overlay it could be
considered consistent with with with that future land use designation looking
at adequate public improvements the site is currently served by a 16 inch water
waterline along McKinney and then there's also a 21 inch sewer line as well
as an 8 inch along Trinity but there are there will be if it is approved and
moves forward it moves forward there will be some lift station improvements
that would be required to handle handle the flow with respect to this property
and that would be fully analyzed at time of platting and when the construction
engineering plans would be reviewed with respect to transportation this is one
where you know we did take some time you'll notice this is that has a
application of 2017 we did have a TIA that was completed for the property that
that I'll go over a little bit more in detail some of the some of the required
improvements to install two left turn lanes from the site into the site I'm
sorry from McKinney extension of post oak will be a dedicated with a four lane
intersection of post oak and McKinney which at a lighted intersection I'll
kind of step through both of these in all of these in a few slides limited
access onto Trinity other than the six single-family lots and the and only
emergency ingress and egress from Trinity and then also a concrete trail
along the front of the property to assist with students going to and from
Ryan High School and so just to blow up a little bit of some of these
improvements you'll see here that as part of the McKinney widening and
improvements the city would would as part of the CIP improvements install the
left turn lane on to post oak however this development would be able to would
be required to construct the traffic light at McKinney prior to phase one and
then coordinate that in conjunction with those McKinney Street improvements which
are anticipated for 2020 in addition they would have to have to construct a
left left and right turn auxiliary range auxiliary lanes with a full access
driveway again as part of that McKinney widening and improvements and same same
at this at this location a this would be a right turn in and out only post oak
they would look to dedicate post oak and then to that to actually construct two
lanes of post post oak from the first site drive to the second site drive you
see in in sort of the darker blue and then construct the northbound right turn
auxiliary lane into the second drive as part of phase two and then construct the
sidewalks along the east side of post oak ultimate right away build out as it
is expected to be at six lanes six lane configuration but that's not expected to
happen at some time in the future but what this development would do is is in
addition to those intersection improvements I just talked about it at
post oak they would be required to construct four lanes of post oak at
McKinney to the to that first drive and then as I mentioned we did want to limit
the access on to onto Trinity so the only the only access point is really for
for emergency access so it's just a it'll be it'll be gated and with an
access for for police and fire and ambulance I wanted to also mention as
you know we have a number of cards from from the residents in the Lakeview Ranch
neighborhood and they were at at the Planning and Zoning Commission I think
we had approximately 27 speakers or so many of them were outside of the the
200 and 500 foot radius but they had a major concern about speeding currently
that goes on within their neighborhood as well as what this development could
possibly bring with increased traffic to their area Planning and Zoning Commission
is part of their their SUP motion requested that the applicant work to
further mitigate any sort of off-site traffic impacts along along Lakeview
which which the applicant agreed and so staff in between staff did meet with
with the HOA regarding a number of items particularly the the ongoing traffic
concerns as well as as well as how that could be exacerbated as a result of this
development staff put together some recommended improvements of
approximately 75,000 we did receive communication from from from Lakeview
that they they were they were generally in support of the improvements however
we're still in opposition to the development and so this was not a
condition of the of the zoning overlay but we we I will get into a little bit
more into it as part of the SUP the notification and I'd like to just spend a
little bit maybe a little bit more time than than normal on on on on these if
you recall that this presentation is slightly different we did update some of
the some of the maps the there was a super majority that would have been
required for the SUP not necessarily for the zoning and what really changed I can
give you an idea here if you see this green area here the this property owner
when it was when it came to P and Z submitted a letter of opposition to the
SUP only so they didn't have both applications on their on their objection
and so just to give you an idea I don't recall off the top of my head the size
of this but it's quite large it represented 28% of that area so if it
gets over that 20 that's where it kicks into that that super majority and so on
the SUP since it changed from red to green that's where that that super
majority is no longer required and we did go and I have another map that I'll
show later where we we tried to take every card or every everything that we
we received and put it into into one map and to kind of give an idea of where
where the opposition was coming from making sure we were trying to to to
calculate it and and and we did we did receive I think three or four other
cards that I looked at today and while they're they're they're very close to
the 200 there are a handful that are not within it there are approximately two
that did make it within I can get my mouse did make it within within the
within the ring if you will unfortunately those properties kind of
clip at these corners and represent approximately one to two percent of
that of that total area and so just to give you an idea you'll you'll also
notice in conjunction with the rezoning when we go we have 51% in favor as we
expand that boundary out those eight acres if you will for the SGP that
number drops it 2% to 49% and so that just kind of gives you a perspective of
the size of the area so while there are while there are a couple that have that
are within that that 200 foot it would not be enough to trigger 20% and again
to give you an idea this area represented 28% just also sorry to
clarify it's not then it's not the number of owners it's it's the property
right it's the land area landmass and so planning and zoning recommended
approval of the of the rezoning or the zoning assignment I should say seven
seven zero with the following that an overlay be placed on the property
limiting the density to more than four units of gross acre and then limiting
the permitted uses to only modular manufactured homes and the six single
family detached on a minimum of one acre along along Trinity and if you'd like I
can just kind of go right into the SGP sure I've got a question on the gross
acreage because you said that under net acreage there's going to be some
right-of-way dedication and things such as that is that that area is still
counted as gross even though it gets it gets dedicated at the plat it's for
density purpose it'll get counted as part of that what's what's owned if you
will all right so on the gross if you calculate on the gross acres it's at the
very top of the dwellings per year per acre under the plan which was defined as
rural I believe correct it's one to four for the conference so I said that it's
at the top range if you did it on the net acreage it's way over it correct yeah
okay all right
councilmember Briggs yeah I'm could you go back to the very first map I think
the property oh yeah wait go two more up back that that one so there's ESA and
open are those roads going through the ESA there yes they do have a they do
show a road as part of phase two going through that and they would be required
to do if that ultimately moves for that phase two of the development they would
be required to do an alternate ESA so that would come back to that would come
back to this to this body to council for ultimate approval thank you and do you
know if you'll show the the I'll say the Google map view for better where it
shows the two parks adjacent to it you've got sort of a an aerial map the
aerial map go to a different one okay right there so the two you've got a two
couple developments one I don't know what direction that is what is that on
the what are these directions facing up is north okay so you see these that are
already developed and you see sort of the density from the air just how they
look do we have any idea what that what that would be compared to to give us
some kind of I mean when you look at the layout the sort of site plan that you
have you've got a it looks very similar but I'm not going to make that call per
se because I don't have all the facts but obviously that looks pretty dense on
both of those and but we don't know what that is I don't I don't recall that
that's fine they were developed in that's okay all right thank you so yeah
you can go ahead to the SUP yeah and so again the the SUP just for the record is
to prove a manufactured housing development on approximately hundred
twenty six point one acres of land what I wanted to do is really give the full
full kind of scale of the criteria for approval I won't read through every
word but I at least just wanted to get it out there so everyone understands what
what it is rather than just giving a one or two word summary of each but one that
it's in conformance with the standards of the zoning district and then it gets
into a number of shall only be issued if all of the following conditions are met
in it it really gets into compatibility normal normal and orderly development
around the surrounding vacant property compatible with the within the immediate
vicinity and again these aren't necessarily defined particularly areas
adequate driveway access drive what driveway and parking spaces nuisance
directional lighting and sufficient landscaping capacity of infrastructure
which we sort of touched on as part of that that rezoning and then that it
would be compatible and would not have an adverse impact on the surrounding
area and again looking at scale bulk coverage traffic generation
architectural compatibility air quality and then development of adjacent
properties and so again going back to a little bit more detail into the proposed
SGP site plan 126 total gross acres ESA at 18.5 open space approximately 15.4
and again to kind of touch again on what what council member Briggs had just asked
any modification of that ESA for the roadway would require an alternate an
alternate ESA 497 manufactured housing stands
so just gives you an idea of of those of those lots council member Briggs you're
still shown as a request to speak are you okay council member Mel sir
regarding the roadway that would require an alternate ESA is is that the only
solution in other words this could not go forward unless there were an
alternative ESA or do they have a way of you know achieving their objectives
without paving through an ESA they probably could thank you they're here
they could probably speak to that Richard do you know what the actual when
you take out for right away and all that what the net acreage is for I don't I
can probably I can probably figure it out get that out if we if you could have
that that'd be that'd be very helpful in fact just to kind of on the two that you
had inquired about on the density Denton Falls mobile home park 188 lots density
of five point one two per acre and Ashley Oaks I believe contains 624 lots
at a density of five point nine almost six so five point nine nine to the acre
okay thank you appreciate that and again the the six one acre lots this was
something that we had talked talked to the applicant about as they were coming
through the review just knowing that there were concerns with with the with
the neighbors primarily in this area making sure that it was sort of more of a
consistent development with what you see along Trinity again overall overall
density without the now again without the still have to figure out what that
right away is and pull it out but we're at about five five and a half and that's
before pulling the right away that's at that net yeah yeah without without the
right away or including the right away I'm right got you all right and then
what I did is just a quick just a quick table looking at meets or exceeds
standards comp plan consistency ironically the already 5x really isn't
consistent because it's more akin to that to our rural designation couple
questions sorry I've got the screen pulled up on mine so it's hard to see
the request to speak so Councilmember Melcer yeah actually mayor if you if you
wouldn't mind it I'm curious about your line of thought on a net density per net
acres is that a standard that is sometimes applied no I mean well I think
sometimes we look at it use gross acres it's it's sort of I don't want to say
misleading but it sort of can be confusing because of something zoned and
then our four which is four units per acre if you have acreage it's a flood
plain or something and you can't use it you can still get four units per acre
times your gross acreage which means you're putting a much more dense
development in and it's technically still conforming with the code so that's
why I really want to see what it's going to look like on the ground not just
what's allowed for the code and the calculations okay thank you yeah I think
it's gonna work out to be about five right a little over five and I think
about five and a half or something like five point four five yeah the council
member Briggs yeah that was my I was gonna ask a clarifying question because I
heard you say five and a half and so I just wanted to make sure that that was
what we were talking about here even with the overlay correct it would still
end up being yeah on the on the net on the net basis without without that
right away the internal roads five point four five thank you and this is just a
a just a basic table we put together just to give a comparison of RD to NR six
to the proposed overlay and again we looked at it just just what they're
requesting with the mobile home park again looking at at the density tree
preservation front setbacks treat trees per lot so the the rd5x does have a sort
of a lot of passes if you will on on meeting some of the requirements as it
relates to to preservation because at the area because the lot is over ten
acres there's certain items that are exempted if you will for rd5x for the
NR six if you're two acres or greater that's where you have certain
dimensional standards that aren't that are required we got a question in our
four zoning just regular zoning does it allow mobile home parks it does not okay
and that was that was why they still stuck with the with the NR six because
that's that was understandable all right but okay thank you again findings as it
relates to the the compatibility and adjacency again the site is adjacent to
approximately three mobile home parks on the northwest and southeast side across
across the across the street ATMAS has their underground gas storage facility
and then looking at the vacant land around you have rd5x NR four interestingly
enough we have NR MU 12 and even NR MU NR MU 12 permits 12 units an acre and NR
MU permits up to 30 units an acre those are our home parks today those are those
are sort of within that general I'll flip back to the zoning so you have an
idea of where those did those allow mobile home parks those zonings I don't
believe they do okay so in our six in essence is in our current code anyway
correct in the current code and so you have a so you see the NR MU 12 that
permits the 12 units an acre and then the NR MU which permits up to 30 units
an acre
an adequate capacity infrastructure again we sort of talked about this as
part of that as part of the rezoning there are improvements that would be
required obviously for the for the sewer line as well as the the traffic
improvements that that we discussed to dive a little bit deeper again as part
of that planning and zoning Commission request they they had asked that the
applicant work to further mitigate on-site off-site traffic impacts along
Lakeview staff came up with with the the list of improvements that that you you
see how outlined there the applicant did agree that they would they would pay for
that that mitigation cost we included a recommendation as part of the as part of
the SGP approval wasn't specific from P&Z but they sort of related to what
they what they had asked they just didn't have that that dollar figure and
so this this is that that map that I that I had alluded to earlier so it might
be a little hard hard to read but what we did is we took any written response
that we had comment speaker cards from from planning and zoning City Council I
was trying to hi I was trying to update it before I came in here to include
there's two parcels right around this right around this area that that
combined again it only it doesn't take their whole property it's only their
property that that is within that 200 foot ring if you will and they were
probably less than a quarter acre I think one was point eight one was pride
even rounding up a quarter acre would probably be generous and it would
probably represent one to one to two percent if that but this just gives you
an idea of what what what came in now there were a number of of those that
were probably pretty pretty close there were some where that line went out to
almost the center line of Trinity and so well I understand there were some folks
that felt that that they were within that 200 they were within the 500 however
however pretty pretty darn close councilmember armature I believe has a
question or comment yeah um could you could you speak to average values of
homes in surrounding air in those surrounding areas now that we have the
map the map up and I'm not just talking with those you know the 200 or 500 foot
range but honestly I'm not much I'm not sure the only thing I did I did look at
at one point there was a question that we had had whether the I think they were
looking at there was a question about the the rates for the lot rental fee
that they were they were looking at charging here and I think they and the
applicant speak to I think they were looking around 500 if I recall and I did
just check with with both parks on either side just to see what they're what
they're sort of going rate again this is a this is some time a couple months back
but at that time they were around four or five hundred yeah but as far as that
is as far as a single thing oh that's fine no no I'm sorry that's a question I
should have asked you in advance but it just occurred to me now that would have
been around my guess would have been a little bit lower but that that makes
sense so thank you so Richard real quick question if you could go back to your
last slide just for just a historical context I mean this parcel was annexed
back a year or two ago I believe yeah it was it was a voluntary annexation I
believe correct the two parcels of land that are notated in green or those
parcels of land so those are in the city limits is that correct those are within
the city limits and they were when they were annexed those mobile home parks
were existing and the way there's a provision in the code for existing mobile
home parks that automatically gives them a SUP if you will it makes them
essentially grants them legal legal legal status so it's not a legal
non-conforming use classification is that correct provided provided that they
were legal when the code was adopted so again at that point in time because they
were legal in the county as part of that annexation when it came in okay
gotcha all right just needed some historical context on that thank you and
this just to give a little bit of a little bit more of a blow up on on that
200 foot buffer and so if you look at the sort of the parcels in here so it
would just be this sort of triangular area or pie wedge that would that would
fall within that and again to give you an idea this area represented 28% of the
area within within the 200 foot do we have any idea what what the change of
heart was on that one I don't know I would alright councilmember Briggs I
think you read my mind again that was my my question was that those that were in
green were originally in opposition and then just yesterday changed the only one
the only these were these were we're in green okay at when this went to P and Z
it was this L shape here that you see the vacant parcel to the to the north so
that that at the time had represented 28 percent so that's what was that's what
was pushing the SUP into the supermajority but then earlier this week
or yesterday they had they had rescinded that and and provided a letter of
support which then took it out of that okay thank you and so so planning and
zoning Commission recommended approval of the request 7-0 with with the SUP
conditions outlined in exhibit 7 and then staff included this additional
condition with respect to the the traffic mitigation as a result of P&Z's
request for for that further further mitigation I'd be happy to answer any
additional questions any questions before we proceed forward percent okay
what I'd like to do is before we go into the public hearing I said we're going to
take a break around this time so let's take a break but also want to just
encourage everyone I know that there's there's passion on all sides of this
issue so if it's possible to keep any comments that are made out there other
than at the day as to a minimum and no show of applause or jeers or anything
like that just so that we can all be respectful of everybody I would really
appreciate that so let's go ahead and take about a five-minute break and then
we'll come back and I'll open the public hearing welcome everybody back to this
meeting of the Dent City Council on January the 8th 2019 it is 753 and we
are now going to move into our public hearing portion of agenda item 6a and 6b
we've had staff presentations so I'll now open the public hearings for both
agenda items 6a and 6b our first card we're going to have come speak will be
the applicant and believe since we are combining this they typically get for
for each agenda item how much madam city secretary do you remember is it total
20 minutes it'd be 10 10 minutes per item 10 per item okay so what I'd like
to do if possible council members is let them go through their presentation so
that we'll have a good accurate count on the time and then you know as the
questions come up because I think what happens is on cases like this we start
asking a bunch of questions and then we just sort of we lose track of the time
so I really want them to get through their other presentation so that you
know they might answer a lot of our questions during their presentation so
we'll go ahead and call the applicant up and of course you've got 20 minutes and
I believe you can split that up in between different presenters so just
state your name and address and your time will begin I'm Michael Holligan 2837
Creekway Drive Carrollton Texas 75010 appreciate the next five to six hours of
your life to go through this and tell you a little bit about ourselves and we
are gonna tag team engineer will come up here in a little bit and we will try to
get it done in ten minutes or less we've been developing property in Denton for
quite some time it's family business champ it's me and my father one of our
big projects that we did is on the east side of 35 the villages of Carmel over
on the west side we did forest Meadows both conventional single-family home
developments right now we just broke ground on Carmel villas one that you all
recently approved it's 415 town homes on 30 acres over on Edwards and pockers
page we've got a new project that we just started talking to this city about
and started design with and that's a senior living independent living
development near the new Buckees and the reason we came to Denton for senior
living and manufactured housing is we work with Jones Langley Sal and they
help us target areas around the country that are underserved and there's a hole
in senior living and in manufactured housing in Denton all the communities
are full they get big rents and they're full and Jones Langley Sal recommended
Denton is the place that that needed manufactured housing needed that price
range of homes when I was looking for property I picked this location for two
reasons one it was in the county so I didn't have to deal with any of this
that was great that was awesome - there was a manufactured housing community on
the west side of it on the east side of it and on the northeast side of it per
fact and there's a natural gas reserve on the south side as one of the senior
staff members here told our engineering group what else would you put there it
made sense it's location location location so we were closing on this
property two years ago in January and the plant we had come in and met with
staff they said hey it's an ETJ no problem do what you want to do do you
want to buy city services I said yes I do and I said no problem and the week of
closing the planner who was on his way out to go to McKinney or somewhere else
I can't remember he said hey I found a pre-development agreement on this piece
of property you're gonna have to annex it into the city so that's what I've
spent the last two years on annexing this property in and then working with
the city totally opposite of what we planned but here we are trying to do it
different than the manufactured housing communities that you already see in the
market we want to do it more like we do a townhome community we want to gated we
want masonry fences out front we want security we want the first hundred feet
when you look in all you see is trees we kept the ESA's but every tear
everywhere you see an entry we want a hundred feet of trees on both sides so
if the gate is open and you see in the development all you see is trees over
the top of the masonry fence what we want you to see is trees you know it's a
private community when people pull in there their home they want to feel safe
they're in their own community we take care of all the yards so one lot
subdivision these are stands they're not individual lots so we mow the yards we
take care of the landscaping so the homeowner just comes home and it's just
like they would one of our townhomes they don't have to do anything if they
don't want outside it's handled for them also I'll cover real quick since that
question keeps popping up on density and what we're doing we do it on gross
density like all the other developments and didn't do but what you're really
down to is how big is a lot there's no lot or no stand in this development below
5,000 square feet so take it as a typical 50 by 100 lot some of them are
shaped differently but the minimum total square footage on a stand is 5,000
square feet in our last meeting with P&Z that went to 111 in the morning and
today I just filled out my card for January 8th I did not fill it out for
the 9th so I hope to finish today but anyway I don't anticipate we'll be here
till 11 we may be okay so yeah what what is manufactured housing what is mobile
homes what is modular home what is stick built manufactured homes are built in a
factory in 1976 Congress set the terms on what is a manufactured home before
that they were mobile homes they look similar but they had different building
standards what we're talking about is manufactured homes and the possibility
of modular homes going in here this is what you see this is what manufactured
homes look like the questions are they permanent that depends on the homeowner
they rent the space to set the home they own the home that belongs to them we put
in a foundation there's a steel frame underneath the home we weld the frame to
the concrete foundation we put block masonry then with stone or brick on the
exterior what people call skirting we do it with masonry it's there it's welded
to the foundation if they want to move it yes it can be cut off the wheels can
axles can be put back on and they can move it that's my part of it and I'm
going to turn it over to Brent Murphy from Kimley horn good evening mayor and
council my name is Brent Murphy I'm with Kimley horn and Associates 5750 Genesis
Court and Frisco since staffs kind of covered a lot of different points I
thought I just kind of altered presentation a little bit and talked more
about the plan the property is hundred twenty six acres we're looking at it
we're trying to find you know how do we create something different there's a gas
pipeline that bisects the property I think you can see my mouse there so
there's a major gas pipeline that crosses the property here working with
staff and trying to figure out where post oak Boulevard would be extended we
first started project post art post oak was intended to be really along Trinity
there was some processes some things done so there was already kind of
momentum to move it further west and not having to go along Trinity so a part of
our process we amended the thoroughfare plan or made commitments to do that to
move post oak to our West property line so with that we're dedicating a hundred
and thirty foot of right away the full right away we're not doing half and
there had to be some condemnation for those existing homes to the West as part
of project we're dedicating all of it so the West property line we got the right
away to dedication we've got the gas plop out in there and then more in the
heart of the project you see there's a lot of ESA in tree areas and creeks and
ponds and then to the far north the ESA area as well so as we were planning it
and a meeting with staff over the last two years you know a lot of discussion
was about traffic on Trinity and so we took we took over a hundred units out we
previously had two other access points that went out to Trinity but
understanding the concerns about traffic on Trinity we want to lessen our impact
to Trinity so we took away an access point work with staff staff recommend
recommended we put one acre lots along Trinity which we did which adds some
transition in the use but it also limits the amount of traffic that it goes to
Trinity furthermore we we put emergency access along Trinity so there's really
no day-to-day in and out of that point we we talked a little bit about the ESA
we're doing everything we can to preserve all of it and obviously the
the name of the woodlands we want to preserve as many trees as well so the
only reason we have this other road that crosses the ESA is just to provide a
second set point of access that that it that can be fluid we can move it to an
area that once we do our on the ground investigation the ESA if there's a way
to lessen that impact or do some different type of material we're not
opposed to that we have no issue crossing that I mean if we if the staff
was supportive of it we wouldn't we would be okay without this but we
understand that we want to leave this emergency access only so we're just
trying to provide a second point of access for this pod and the only way to
do that and not penetrate Trinity again is to cross it in someplace but we can
definitely work to find the perfect path to lessen impact when we do cross it I
don't want to try to rehash everything between staff and what Michael's covered
but it is a we're trying to do something different we've got large buffers along
the property we got a three foot berm along McKinney and an eight foot tall
masonry wall none of that's required but it's we're trying to take it to a higher
standard if you look you combine the ESA preservations plus open space that's
about quarter of the site so a quarter of the site where it's going to be
green built where if you look at the developments to our each each side of us
they're pretty well gridded out and maxed out their their footprint throughout
the whole property so we're not trying to do that we're trying to create pods
create a sense of arrival when you do enter you've got green spaces that are
entering you into the community and and to me when you space those out you give
a different feel to the community we had a lot of discussion about this at PNZ and
when you do come in and you have green spaces and you get green belts provided
throughout it it does soften the overall community and so we're trying to think
about those things too we also will have an amenity center that is shown here and
we'll have trails that connect it I think a big thing I don't staff didn't
cover it but a one big component to this in our SUP is we talk about all these
things that we're gonna do and we're gonna make it different and we're where
that it's fine to talk about it but we're committing ourselves an SUP so all
the things that you see in your packet for the SUP conditions those are things
that we're bound to do we're required to do because we committed to them where
you may have times we're developers at the podium saying hey we're gonna they
paint a pretty picture instead of gonna do this but there's nothing that binds
it binds and requires them to do that we purposely over the last two years have
worked with staff to figure out you know what can we do here we took out a lot of
lots how can we it's been a year and a half doing traffic studies about three
different iterations and doing traffic counts when schools in schools out you
know one thing with that PNZ was asked that we we try to make some concessions
even though we lessen the traffic up Trinity to find a way to work with the
neighborhood they couldn't condition it so I came to the podium and volunteered
a self self-imposed that we do something to help even though we've lessened that
impact and we couldn't attend the meetings which I respect that but we
have committed in in the conditions that will be responsible $75,000 to improve a
situation that they may wish whether we're here or not they have but we
worked hard to look at traffic and to not make the problem worse some of these
points we've already covered through the previous discussions I think one thing
that through talking to a lot of homeowners in the area we've had several
meetings two formal meetings and a couple informal with individual residents
who reached out to us the list station I think has been needing repair for a long
time and I think anybody who lives there would say that we had several tell us so
we get luckily be the beneficiary of improving that and otherwise I don't
think there's any capital plan right now to improve that situation and and that's
part of what we do at the project another part is downstream of our property just
on the other side of Trinity there's a large amount of drainage that comes
through this area so we met with several property owners here and a few of them
are here tonight and their concern was about about drainage and so we've we're
committed to doing detention and every basin of our project that that's what
we're gonna do there's no no question I think there was some concern about trash
coming off some other properties and across Trinity we volunteer to put trash
racks and things to clean up some of that area that we're really not
contributing today but we're just trying to again be neighborly and find a way to
make the overall area in a better condition there's a culvert under Trinity
Road that we're willing to that we're going to improve I think a big part in
the paving improvements is Post Oak Boulevard again we're dedicating giving
all the hundred thirty foot right away and building most of the pavement I will
say I think y'all the city traffic engineer is here tonight but the the
light the traffic signal at post oak and McKinney was not warranted by the study
our client through all the negotiations and trying to be neighborly and offer
something committed to build that light is three hundred thousand dollars it's
not warranted for our study we don't produce enough traffic for that major
arterial intersection to have it but we committed to do it and again I've already
kind of covered the 75,000 in Lakeview Ranch and we again try to be very
neighborly there and listen and help in any way we can I think one thing had me
touched on tonight but it wasn't P&Z was the timing of the Mayhill Road
improvements and as well as McKinney Street so if you look at this diagram on
the top what I'm trying to trying to present is the fact that we've talked to
staff on when Mayhill Road will be completed so our understanding may help
and staff if if if something has changed in the last few days please tell us but
in Mayhills intended to be completed in spring of 2020 McKinney Street
improvements are intend to be completed in September 2020 by the time we do all
the prop go through all the city process construction plans and reviews and
approvals and build the first phase we don't we're not ready to have the first
unit on the property until after McKinney Street's done so Mayhill and
McKinney Street those are complete so a lot of concerns about traffic and how we
impact the two-lane road that's there today it won't be a two-lane road but
time we're ready to develop it'll be a four-lane road and I'd be happy if any of
the engineering staff would like to speak to that but in all of our
communication over the last two years it's even become more evident based on
timing and partly our project extending back that those align in a good manner
I think stats already discussed all the turn lanes that we're doing through the
through McKinney Street so this map we we used it at PNZ to kind of just you
can see the general circulation the area Mayhill Road how it circulates to 380
Trinity our opinion is when McKinney Street's improved and Mayhills improved
you've got four lane divider roadways arterials and the traffic is gonna route
more easily to 380 but again we've done extensive traffic studies the city's
staff has done extensive reviews to help us and guide us and and make good
decisions on that a few these are few summary points I won't go through all of
them I think somewhere through these presentations we've covered them I want
to say I'd like to say thank you to the staff's time but we spent a numerous
amount of hours with staff all levels of staff trying to figure out you know how
we annex it how we zone it how can we tweak and massage it to find something
that we could support that would fit it how can we meet with neighbors to try to
find you know we can't unfortunately can't make everybody happy but how can
we reach out to people that are even you know mile to two miles away from us and
try to mitigate something that we have we feel has little impact to but we but
we are trying to be neighborly I think that's hopefully that's appreciated by
the council I know I do this a good bit and I see a lot of developers at times
and they just try to rush something through and obviously we haven't rushed
this one through but we have tried to take us a serious approach and meet with
everybody and be and be as a neighbor as we could so to that I just want to say
thank you to staff all staff's time and appreciate appreciate your time here
tonight do you have another presenter for your group or is that the end of
y'all's presentation overall okay we have a couple questions councilmember
Armitage and then whoever is able to answer that yes so I wanted to thank you
for addressing the the mayhill construction issue that was for me I
heard from some constituents for whom that was a big concern and it was a
concern that made a lot of sense to me and and so I'm relieved to see that this
is your timeline and I'm wondering is it can we get that in writing do you feel
like you could I mean obviously you put on writing on your presentation but is
that something that that you would feel comfortable and correct me city attorney
if there's something you know prohibiting that act to my knowledge I
don't think so I'm getting that in there as as a promise into the agreement we
can make our side as part of the conditions of the SUP the city side on
how fast they build the streets that's what we've been told we can't do their
side but yeah sure yeah thank you yes yeah for some reason we were to move
quicker and get plans approvals and we made because if we make it a condition
in the SUP if we're waiting or ready then we got to wait and that's because
that's an SUP mm-hmm so yeah Michael owns the property days we're not
contingent on a closing or something like that so if we want to write that as
a condition to the SUP we're more than happy and wonderful yeah that would
you know for me that's that's pretty important you know and I can assure you
that people are already complaining enough about us taking so long to work
on streets it takes a long time so nobody's gonna be dragging anything out
intentionally when it comes to road construction but thank you very much
for putting that in so what is the condition we're talking about for the
for the timing or if you wanted to articulate it so on the top right you'll
see that we're showing our phase one construction will not be completed yeah
until waiting for it to come up okay go ahead we won't be completed asking for
permits I guess the best way to tag it is to permit so we will not file for a
permit until McKinney Street improvements are completed yeah permit
me being there will be a building permit of some fashion for every you know every
unit that comes in and puts the count okay but as far as clearing and grading
interior roads all that that will that will continue and you just won't pull a
permit to place your first housing module on there until those road
constructions are completed correct because it takes all 12 months to put
that on the ground committing to our calendar on there on the dates that
we're showing you there when you say the road construction if the city decides
to take longer we're not agreeing to that we're agreeing to the dates we're
giving you here for our side yeah so it's not really contingent upon whether
the roads there or not it's it's your timeline and so if somehow something gets
held up with the city no fault of anybody's it's just who knows what then
it doesn't then the development could move forward if Mayhill or McKinney had
not been fully developed as as anticipated is what I'm hearing you say
that the timeline that you're talking about is just your timeline it has
nothing to do with the construction of McKinney or Mayhill correct the dates
we've been given on McKinney and Mayhill are from your staff we're
committing to the dates that we give on you so I think that's different than
what you asked for yeah and thank you I was just about to add I blame myself for
not understanders I'm sure you explained it well thank you for asking for for
clarity yeah so you wouldn't feel comfortable and you don't have to answer
right now this this moment but we do this stuff in public if we would you
feel okay with committing to you know when the city is ready or maybe when the
city is ready if not by this date if that would make you feel more
comfortable I'd have to have an end date right now you're saying within that date
within that time yeah I'll give you a peek behind the curtain it's 23 million
six hundred thousand dollars to develop this so I can't do phase one and then be
told you can't move homes in forever because we're not going to finish the
road you know sorry absolutely I have some idea that makes yeah yeah that that
makes sense to me okay okay thank you Councilmember Meltzer thank you for
presentation you've been very creative in trying to kind of thread the needle
you probably heard my comment before and I wonder if you do feel that there's a
way to execute this without impinging on environmentally sensitive areas you know
that road that's crossed that was not in any of our original plans what happened
was when we started talking about doing it in phases with the staff there was a
fear that the people in the northeast might be trapped back there because that
exit to Trinity is not open that's just for emergency vehicles only so they
really become one lane so it was a recommendation that we add that
additional line as Brent addressed when we get feet on the ground and actually
plot the ESA exactly where it's at we may find a little bit better place to
put that road where there's less you know intrusion into the ESA does that
answer it or am I still off on what you're asking I mean look thanks for
responding I have a couple questions so these aren't going to be platted lots I
mean even the acreage the five or six up there on the front those will not be
platted for resale the or those will be the six one acre lots on the east side
on Trinity Road right will be platted lots and those will have single family
stick built homes for sale okay so this is my main concern and maybe it's it's
looking down the road of this development so if you could go back to
the picture that you show the example of the homes these right here so these are
homes that now I don't know how big these homes are in the picture I don't
know what price range but this so this is really my main question because I
don't understand how this is going to operate number one the the people do not
own the lots they just rent the lots so does the way that you're affixing if the
if the homeowner chooses to affix it are you requiring them to affix it
permanently about the welding or can they come in and not and and have a
mobile home there that's not like that yeah it's required in the SUP we have an
engineered foundation with steel coming out of it right it's welded to it if
they want to move their home it can be cut sure and they can take the home okay
so they have to do that to be in that development correct and that meets the
criteria for the definition of permanently affixed according to FHA or
HUD for potential HUD financing where it becomes it converts from a piece of
personal property to a piece of real property is that correct no no because
it's a rental piece of property they don't they're not buying the property
they own the home but not okay so it's never going to be classified as real
property on the tax rolls it will always be classified as personal property like
an automobile their home will be yes I'll have the tax bill that's right
personal property but they're the homes will be taxed as personal okay so that's
that's appreciate that two separate taxpayers yes I appreciate that which
means from all the research I've done and just my experience with this is that
that puts people in a totally different financing criteria for purchasing these
homes that they can't get what's considered FHA financing because they're
not permanently affixed to the ground so it's now a personal property loan which
means financing is different than if you were just going out here and buying a
stick frame home so on that I'd rather have someone more knowledgeable than me
speak and he happens to be here and he happens to live on the east side of
Trinity and has water going across his yard right now and Tim Blankenship has
lived here for 30 years he's managed Clayton home lots Clayton homes is owned
by Burlington northern Warren Buffett large homebuilder he's financed these
homes for Vanderbilt mortgage for 30 years so I'd like him to and we'll get
to that so yeah I want to stay on my train of thought just so I can lose it
real quick okay so as far as your criteria so I understand these were new
homes that we were seeing that we were seeing here in the photo so what is the
criteria if someone wants to place a home in this community what's the
criteria to do that I mean you're not going to have somebody bring in a ten
thousand dollar manufactured home and put in this development next to a brand
new hundred thousand dollar manufactured home so how do you how do you control
that normally what we have you do a credit check on the person like you
would anytime you're renting property renting the space and then on the home
itself you normally have a year like a two-year limit can't be older than two
home two years sorry so it needs to be a new home or recently purchased home but
no you don't you don't put old inventory in there okay so that's a is that built
into the lease agreement yes a lot yes okay and let me think here I don't think
it's any surprise that I'm very bearish on this project quite honestly I know
that y'all spent a lot of time doing it but when I look at the density and I
look at the makeup of how this works and I'm sure we're gonna hear some talk
about affordability which I welcome that discussion because I think as we as we
drill down into the data it may not be exactly as as it seems to be not to
criticize it but just stating you know what what the facts are I'm concerned
about the density and I'm concerned about how this development will hold up
over time and I think I calculated that so you talked about a 23 million dollar
development 23 six 23 six so once they're all leased out even if you if
they're 500 of them and it's 500 a month that's two hundred fifty thousand
dollars a year that's over I don't know what that is about three million three
million dollars a year so if you're able to get them all rented up I mean that
that's going to be a that's going to be a nice that would be good investment but
my concern is how this will hold up over time and the types of I was I'm quite
honestly I'm really shocked to hear this is new information to me I listened to
the three-hour four-hour five-hour PNC meeting and six the new information is
and maybe your your friend can can elaborate on that but to to know that
these are not going to be quote-unquote designated as permanently affixed from
the standpoint of ownership and how that impacts the homeowners ability to how
they finance it that that's that's a surprise to me I thought that if you
weld it you know it's permanently affixed but I've learned something new
today and I think that greatly impacts the the opportunities or the concerns of
people who may come in here and not number one understand that and it also
impacts their tax value as they're taxed on as personal property on the appraisal
district tax rolls because real property as we all know at least recently you
have an appreciation personal property which these would be classified as that
does not occur in fact the data shows that they typically will lose 25 to 40
percent of their value over you know four or five or six years and from a
city's perspective on the tax revenue that's going to require a tremendous
amount of services you know for another 500 500 homes so that I appreciate that
information that's helpful to me I did not know that I figured since they were
welded and I did some research that that would qualify but it does not from what
you're saying correct okay thank you very much and just to reiterate one time
we are taxed on the property and the property does appreciate and what we have
an income stream that we're sure on so yeah you're taxed as an investment piece
of property based upon income capitalization rates like an apartment
complex like an apartment complex so that's that's my point I mean here we're
talking about a quote-unquote single-family development but for all
intents and purposes these people are renters who are owning their home it
would own the home but it's still not their home they can live there as long
as they want they're still going to pay whatever it costs for you guys to
maintain it so and what you've shown certainly don't have any any complaints
or issues with with you your ability to do that look and to real quick to
address that as you said over time that's why we contain it it's got
security gates we maintain all the yards the landscaping and everything so that it
it maintains value because it's a huge investment to us and it was us for the
value to go up not to be run down over time right and so the value going up
means that also probably for the value to go up based upon an income approach
of valuation means that at some point you'll have to raise those lot rents I
mean you can't keep them like that forever I mean prices go up and things
such as that so it's probably built into the leaves it's based on the market yeah
okay you have to you have to supply and demand right I have to go with the
market okay all right fantastic councilmember Briggs well and again you
just answered my last question it was about the lot rents and if there was
some sort of way that we could keep those at 500 but it sounds like that it's
potentially to go up my my issue is that it's presented as you know affordable
and then you start adding all of these things up and then I find out about you
know not maybe being able to qualify for a a low-income loan or first-time you
know homebuyer loan because of the way that the house is not a fixed or it's
not actually a fixed so I guess I'm do you plan to purchase homes yourself and
lease them out is that part of it or is it all just individuals bringing their
homes in to to lease it's individuals bringing their home and they they buy the
home from Tim or other people like Tim they bring the home in because they
choose to live in the area right now if you want to move into Denton there's
basically no place to put a double wide manufactured home all the lots or least
there is no place if you have a single wide home and you want to move into
Denton there may be five or six out of all of the parks in Denton that are
available to move home so if you want to live in Denton there's choices you can
rent a home today we learned you could rent a garage for $1,200 a month you can
rent a home you can rent an apartment on this if and again Tim would be better
addressing this but a three-bedroom two-bath home if it's brand-new you're
gonna be somewhere between 700 to 1,100 a month on mortgage taxes insurance
mortgage insurance all of that combined then on the lot rent on top of that the
two parks on each side of this one I'm told their average rent is 442 a month
so add that on top of that and that starts to give you an idea you're gonna
be somewhere in that 1,300 to 1,600 a month to own the home and lease the
space yes go ahead yeah my well I have a I have an issue with the density and the
five per acre is quite a lot for this area personally and then I have some
other lists here as well that I have some questions for staff later and I'm
looking forward to hearing what what everyone else has to say thank you
councilmember Amater you are signed up to request the speakers that an old one
is that you okay so thank you yeah so I just wanted to to share that I the
constituent of mine who meant to be here that she can be here because she had had
to be home with her kids her husband couldn't watch them anyway she she lives
in a mobile community here in Denton and anyway she really likes where she lived
that she was curious because she when when seeing that this was an issue
anyway so I said please watch and let me know your thoughts anyway she wrote she
said that community sounds like a dream you know I said I don't want you know I
wasn't asking her but do you want a movie or not but anyway I was just I was
asking for her feedback and I've been asking her all along as I've been you
know kind of studying up for today how does this compare to your community
right it's I think it's called the Hickory community but one thing that I
just wanted to share for now this is just one person but she feels that you
know she would much rather have a home with a solid foundation where she didn't
have to rent out the land but these kind of arrangements are really common for
mobile community and she wanted to own her home it was really important for her
and her husband that they own their home and they do feel like they own their
home for what it's worth they don't feel like they're like their renters they
don't like you know paying the lot as she calls it but homes right now in
Denton with a solid foundation where you on the land you on the home are just not
affordable at their income level so I just wanted to share that it's just you
know a different different perspective thank you
okay any other questions for the applicant okay thank you if I can yes go
ahead oh of course of course absolutely sure that's it you're done you can't
speak you can't you can't address anybody no obviously obviously of course
you will okay now we've got sort of an interesting request on these cards so
we've got a set of cards that are numbered by different speakers so
apparently there's a sequential order to the speakers which which I will I will
honor and then we have one card that sort of didn't have a place so I'm going
to call that card first and if it's out of order somebody just tell me Lisa Barry
is Lisa here if Lisa you'll come down and speak and then we'll start in with
the sequential sequential cards good evening everybody and thank you so much
for hearing us out and I guess following your comments I don't have a lot to of
new to add but I do want to thank you all for your attention and time this
evening this is obviously something that is very important to a number of people
who have come this evening as you said very passionate on both sides also want
to thank you folks for your efforts to make the community appealing to the area
surrounding it as well however I am of the opinion that permanent housing is
going to be more appropriate for the community the welfare of the community
than portable you've got a daunting task ahead of you you have a room full of
people who as I said are very passionate about this issue on both sides you've
got to make a decision to either vote to approve or deny the development of a
modular home or or or manufactured home neighborhood that will very nearly back
up to the neighborhood that the vast majority of these people live in and
you're facing those folks tonight my goal this evening is to remind you of
the facts some of what have already been brought up surrounding affordable
housing and clarifying why the proposed development in my opinion will not help
the families that you're attempting to aid first what is affordable housing HUD
defines affordable housing as housing that costs no more than 30% of the gross
household income including utilities so far we haven't even mentioned utilities
second what our average mobile home or modular home costs manufactured housing
costs my numbers when I was researching it I look specifically to give the
benefit of the doubt at modular homes as opposed to manufactured housing or
mobile homes modular housing the average cost according to both modular home
owners.com website and also the real estate website home advisor.com the
average modular home cost is about a hundred thousand dollars for the home
that excludes transportation set on foundation connections for water and
electrical permits all of which can combine to cost about an additional ten
to twenty five thousand dollars according to these home sites this again
does not include the HUD stipulation of utilities utilities are still in
addition to all of that for the modular home as was mentioned earlier the
financing is different HUD says that it will be about three to four percentage
points interest percentage points higher for the type of loan that would be
necessary for one of these homes over a traditional mortgage the monthly cost
for this hundred thousand dollar home at seven point five percent interest rate
roughly over a 20 year mortgage again giving the benefit of the doubt some of
them are not going to be accepted at 20 year but would be ten to fifteen instead
which would raise the costs if you figure it though at 20 years seven point
five percent interest hundred thousand dollars the cost for the mortgage for the
home alone would be about eight hundred dollars in the woodlands the homeowners
would not own their land as we discussed previously there would be a monthly
rental fee of 500 plus again utilities taxes and so forth on top of all of that
so rental rates again obviously we've discussed they will undoubtedly rise
over time if the homeowners cannot afford the increase they will face the
possibility of needing to move their home or sell at a loss since modular
homes unleashed properly do not property do not appreciate in value so the red
residents in the woodlands would be paying about thirteen hundred dollars
per month minimum for their for their home and the property rental using HUD's
definition of affordable housing that means that the residents would have to
earn more than fifty two thousand dollars per year to be able to afford one
of these hundred thousand dollar homes that would be in the woodlands excuse me
per the economic development partnership of Denton per capita income in Denton is
twenty five thousand nine hundred and fifteen dollars per year for a two
working parent household that equates to a gross income of fifty one thousand
eight hundred and thirty dollars which is below that fifty two thousand dollars
that I had calculated earlier that would be necessary to afford an average cost
modular home and that is if the family still has the financial capacity to
provide down payment pay for insurance pay for utilities taxes etc finally also
according to the economic development partnership of Denton the median cost of
rent in Denton is a thousand five dollars so three hundred dollars thirty
percent less than what it would cost the for a typical home in this community and
article in the Denton record Chronicle recently discussing the city's
development approval of the enclave that would be located behind Home Depot
quoted past president of Denton Housing Authority Bill Geiss as as saying that
he and their agree the proposed affordable housing monthly rental rates
of nine hundred to a thousand are too high ma'am that was your time okay and I
usually give people a chance to wrap up but we got a lot of people and if I did
that on everybody we're gonna we might hit the midnight mark so thank you so
much councilmember husband do you have a question for the speaker that's that's
correct yes go ahead yeah so first we thank you for the data thank you for the
research I appreciate the margins my question is pretty pointed is when you
talk about rent there's no equity in rent right so there's a hundred percent
more equity in a modular home mobile home whatever you call it 100% more than
someone that rents in a home except these homes tend to depreciate so they're
going to be paying through their mortgage and everything for a certain
value if they try to sell it they will not recoup that but when I moved out of
an apartment I barely got my deposit back if I fought scratch-cloth right well
I understand yeah nothing mm-hmm you if you sell your modular home you get
something yes something you're gonna get some so that's 100% more correct I would
not know you'll get something you won't say it's a hundred percent more it's
something by my math it's a hundred percent more than nothing but by all
means and so but and then also I all sincerity because everyone that comes up
I'm gonna ask this question so we're talking about a need for affordable
homes and you've outlined a wonderful case I just don't understand how we're
going to meet that affordable home need building traditional homes and
traditional methods and then find the people that want to live across the
street from a natural gas storage facility I understand so I just I would
ask you to take some out-of-the-box thinking and one of my thoughts is the
city ought to invest in programs that will increase the salaries for some of
these people that were concerned with affordable housing there could be
apprenticeship programs and so forth that would help them to raise their
income as opposed to putting money into something like this that ultimately for
a variety of reasons is going to stress the city and not be of great value for
the homeowner let me and I'm gonna keep a fairly tight rein because what happened
in the PNZ meeting that I watched is is it almost became a debate between
council members and and I'm not saying that's what you're doing but we could
probably ask these kind of questions because I have probably three responses
to what you just said but I'm not gonna say it right now well I just here and
I'm sorry yeah that's what I'm saying is we if we're gonna have discussions among
council let's wait until we have the public hearing but what I don't want to
have happen for each speaker to come up here and for all of us to state our own
opinions we have some very cogent questions let's ask it but because what
we're getting into now is way off topic as far as you know when I were talking
about affordable housing which we can talk about that but and ideas to fix
that what we've got here is a zoning issue and an SUP issue so it's a fine
line to manage I'm gonna be honest with you but I just remember I don't want to
repeat what happened and not that there was anything wrong with that but as I
watched it just seemed like everybody was very frustrated because some people
some speakers were up here for 15 or 20 minutes and we can't we can't do that I
mean I don't think it's necessary so that's not to interrupt you say you
can't talk but I'm just saying I just want to says we move forward to try to
keep that keep that in mind well I I'll solicit your direction then because I'm
gonna say some stuff at the end of this thing that's not gonna make a lot of
people happy and so I can either give them an opportunity to hear that out
individually and and have that conversation and have that feedback or
wait for you to close the session and then and say it and they have no
opportunity to say anything back or I can't elicit that information so I'll
just I'll make notes and and go from there but that that is the conundrum
that I'm under I want to give them an opportunity to reply because I think I've
not had a chance to ask those questions and then to hear that feedback okay so
the entire statement was if I if I parsed out what she laid out it was 80
percent affordability matter of fact she walked there through that entire step so
I think the question was on point and and and so that's why I went down that
road based on what she said not my own sure personal personal approach to it
but I'll take your direction that that's my concern well and and so this is this
is why I say this because number one even the facts that were presented
thirteen hundred dollars a month did not include taxes or insurance now on a
hundred thousand dollar valuation city of Denton taxes school counties is would
be twenty five hundred dollars a year which is two hundred fifty dollars a
month insurance is gonna be probably another eighty to a hundred dollars a
month so and in your question of you get something for nothing I disagree with
that you could have those modular homes devaluing to depreciate faster than the
principal reduction is being paid down in the mortgage so it could be that
they're upside down so no no no that's no let's so that's what I'm saying is we
could we could have these kind of discussions for a long time and I would
just assume say though because if you ask every one of these people that
question they're gonna have a different answer and if we need to discuss it up
here we're the ones that have to vote but I don't want to keep repeating the
same question and then have everybody have to answer it I think they've been
through this process in PNC so I'm not sure they're gonna hear much different
tonight than what they've probably heard and I'm not saying that to censor you
I'm just saying it's it's gonna be up to me to try to keep some kind of process
moving so I'm gonna defer to I'm gonna call on you if you request to speak I'm
gonna do it and I'm just gonna trust your your judgment in that and and we'll
move forward from there I didn't want to start arguments but we wanted to be
heard so thank you sure thank you very much you bet all right so now we will go
to the sequential order and if you could it's four minutes I believe it's four
minutes in it oh five minutes are we setting the timer for five minutes okay
so if you could as you hear the bell really wrap it up because I feel
uncomfortable and I have to interrupt people and tell them to to to wrap it up
so and that's my job so I'll do it if I need to but just ask for your you're
helping that okay the first speaker is Bill you're gonna have to help me with
this is it real Rebecca repka okay all right thank you
yes I'm Bill Repke oh he's pronounced E okay and if you'll state your address as
well yes I'm Bill Repke I live at 1402 Lakeview Boulevard in Denton Lakeview
Ranch the woodlands plan is to lease 500 pad sides for people to park their home
the developer says these parked homes will be welded to the pad I agree people
have a right to be proud of where they live be proud of homeownership they're
also proud of where they live my problem is these people do not own the land they
are parking their home they'll pay $500 a month $6,000 a year and they do not own
land under their feet this is not the homeowners pad they won't own a blade of
grass and they are parking their home therefore it's a manufactured home
trailer park the developer and city have repeatedly referred to this as a
affordable housing or low-income housing this is not low-income housing this is
housing to keep them low-income they will never own the land they have their
personal home welded to the woodlands adjoining property to the west Ashley
Oaks my understanding was a vision of the city planners 2030 plan to zone
Ashley Oaks is in our to after the fact to encourage low density housing in the
area as a continuation of the end the 2030 plan and the vision of these
original planners I wish you would follow their vision and recommend the
low density housing in the area I highly recommend you would continue the low
density woodlands development as in our for I'd approve a plan for site built
homes where people own spot in Denton pay didn't property taxes pay school
taxes take ownership in this city but a trailer park manufacturer home park or
somebody else's land I'm totally against I opposed the proposed I opposed the
proposed woodlands property zoning change and recommend staying within the
2030 plans that you are for see no questions thank you okay thank you for
your time is it bill Hassan hadn't hadn't okay yes if you'll come down
state your name and address your time will begin my name is Bill Haddon I live
at 2000 Lakeview Boulevard Lakeview Ranch here here in Denton mr. mayor
council thank you for seeing us this evening last time I stood here and
addressed the council I had to say good morning it was P&Z but at least we're
still evening now I have basically just a brief statement to to read I'm here
tonight to read to Council a response to the city of Denton from our community
regarding the traffic control plan proposed by the city of Denton traffic
department that was tied to the approval of the woodlands project the letter that
I'm going to read here was delivered to the city of Denton traffic department
yesterday as a representative of the Lakeview Ranch community we would like
to express our appreciation for the time the city has taken to listen to our
concerns and for the proposed traffic control plan developed by the city's
traffic department traffic and safety have been a major concern in the Lake
View Ranch community for some time this has been brought to the attention of the
city of Denton multiple times many of our residents are in favor of the
traffic plan as presented but not if it means supporting the creation of the
woodlands project the opposition in fact to the project has grown even stronger
as a result of the woodlands trying to buy our support for paying for the
traffic control plan on Lakeview Boulevard a take it or leave it position
simply does not convey being neighborly or a good faith effort to solve a
problem the project is strongly opposed not only by our community but several of
the other communities surrounding the project approval of this project will
further burden those streets surrounding the woodlands that are already
overburdened the hope of the woodlands transportation plan seems to be that the
changes to East McKinney Street and North May Hill Road will completely ease
the traffic burden in the area as you know a street project takes years to
complete not months as you are all well aware the improvements being done on
North May Hill Road which has been ongoing for over a year are not yet 50
percent complete the proposed Post Oak Boulevard has yet to be designed or even
budgeted beyond the traffic issue our group has concerns about the load on the
already overburdened public school system there are also questions regarding
the purpose of the project is it really affordable housing and does this project
really meet those needs as has already been mentioned what we're talking about
in this project is a depreciating asset versus an appreciating asset the
residents of Lakeview Ranch support the city of Denton and the vision laid out
in the 2030 plan we believe that councils constituents those of us who
strongly oppose the projects should have a voice in how the community is
developed the 2030 plan outlined an admirable and visionary plan for the
city we do not believe the woodlands achieves the desired goals of the 2030
plan the project was approved by planning and zoning in part on the
consistency of the look and feel of the surrounding community we strongly
disagree with the idea that the woodlands achieves these ends again as
for the traffic control plan proposed for Lakeview Boulevard we are in agreement
with many of the elements of the proposal however we must voice a unified
opposition to the woodlands project thank you again for the plan that the
city of Denton has put together to help provide safety for our residents we
greatly appreciate the willingness on the part of the city of Denton to
provide these much-needed improvements to Lakeview Boulevard thank you residents
of Lakeview Ranch again that was submitted yesterday to the traffic department
a couple of questions councilmember Armitage so thank you for sharing I have
a question and actually this is a question of procedure am I allowed to
ask a question of the the developers to respond to a traffic issue that the
gentleman who just spoke I would prefer that they take the notes and then we'll
address them all at once instead of piecemeal so if you have a particular
question that you would like them to address you can pose that and they'll
record that and then I'll have a chance to respond to all of it at one time okay
great well so then I will just say I don't want to put you on the spot but I
will be asking a question about a specific trying to nail down more of a
specific timeline for the completion of Mayhill I understand that that's just
one of the issues that you brought forward to us but you know I understand
the Mayhill project has been yet delayed further yeah yep yes so I think that
kind of nailing something you know committing committing to a date and
getting something in writing I think would be good for everyone I myself I
don't like to meet with developers in advance because it sends a wrong message
to the public in case people are wondering why didn't you call this out
ahead of time so it's a little messy when we do it in public like this but
that's how I like to do it for full transparency but anyway thank you
councilmember Hudson staff if you could I'll start off the list of questions I'm
sorry no I was just having based on that statement I'd like to know where the
idea for the developer paying for the traffic originated so if you can
whenever you come up with your questions or answers provide that kind of that
timeline thank you that's it as I glanced up at the clock before I walked
away I had about 30 seconds left sure may I ask everyone in the room opposed to
the project to please stand okay thank you that completes my five minutes yes
thank you very much you bet all right the next speaker is in and my mind goes
so it's Sheila and it's the lap Ropeca so yes I'm sorry if you could just state
your name and address I didn't look far enough down in the cards I apologize
good evening my name is Sheila rep key and I'm the other half of the rep key
team 1402 Lakeview Boulevard thank you for allowing us the opportunity to share
our thoughts and concerns regarding the proposed development of the woodlands I
have perspectives on this issue from two different angles first of all I was a
single mother raising my two two two children on my own I understand
financial struggle and the stress of trying to make ends meet
secondly I was a teacher of at-risk students for 43 years and still
substitute at the alternative high school in Denton I worked closely with
these kids and their families I know the struggles that they faced I considered
it my job to better the lives of my students so the never-ending cycle of
generation after generation of families living in low-income status could end
pardon me I'm very passionate about this subject I encourage them to better their
lives continue their education set goals and have faith in themselves I loved
every minute of my job which brings me to the reason I am here speaking to you
this evening I know that Denton has a need for low-income housing I feel very
strongly however that providing housing for these people that will never
appreciate is a serious mistake encouraging people to invest in property
that will only depreciation is not only puzzling but in my opinion is appalling
and I have a quote that I would like to share with you from Trulia the question
posed was do mobile homes generally appreciate and value in in other words
are they a good investment Don Tepper an agent a real estate agent from Burke
Virginia States do mobile homes generally appreciate in value no the
structure generally loses value however the next question is whether the home is
in a park in which you're just leasing the land a land lease or ground rent or
whether it's somewhere where you actually own the land if you're just
leasing the land and you have a depreciating asset period if you own the
underlying land the land might go up in value perhaps enough to offset or more
than offset the declining value of the structure and we know that it's not the
case in the woodlands I sincerely hope that it is not the vision of Genton to
make this a mobile home city where others neighboring cities are eliminating
trailer parks due to the negative impact on their communities I hope we can
follow their visions and so I urge you the City Council representatives of all
residents of Denton to hear our concerns this development will not only impact us
the residents of Lakeview Ranch but it will have a very negative impact on the
lives of those who choose to live there please give them the pride of ownership
as we are privileged to have and I would like to present this listing I'm not sure
how to do this yeah if you'll set it yeah don't pull it up there you go it's
it's on the overhead the point was made that stick-built homes are not affordable
in Denton that there are none to be found I just found this listing this
afternoon it's a three-bedroom two bath house
1287 square feet which is about the size I raised my family in listing for a
hundred and forty nine nine if you will look the estimated payment is six hundred
and fourteen dollars a month not counting taxes and insurance but if
that's not affordable I don't know what is and that's a very nice home available
to anyone and especially those of low income I urge you to deny the request for
manufactured homes but instead provide opportunities for those people to truly
own their homes that will appreciate in value ma'am therefore better their lives
thank you yeah thank you very much no you're good thank you very much
appreciate that are there any questions any questions saying none thank you
appreciate it thank you next speaker will be Merit Kirk if you'll come down
state your name and address and I'll just go ahead and call who will be up
next will be Gary is it Bowers so you'll be up next after mr. Kirk state your
name and address your time begin
my wife and I have lived there happily mostly for the past 14 years and what
we've seen during that time is a pretty substantial increase in traffic in terms
of speed volume recklessness and so forth and I have this chart which I hope
will show up it's not real good and it's not the exact shape yeah and if you could
maybe stay as close to the mic as possible transmitting so that people can
hear you it's not the exact shape of the development but it is kind of generic
the way I did it but hmm here's down here let me use let me use my pen down
here's McKinney okay and then there's a little road called Grissom over here
that ties in with Trinity Trinity goes up over a one-lane bridge and then up
Lakeview and that little K there that's our house okay and though so all the way
up is US 380 okay now in addition we have blag road going across here we have
Mills Road going across here and we have these the existing trailer parks I'll
call them the mobile home parks Ashley Oaks has about 600 sites and then over
here is Denton Falls which roughly 200 sites so that's 800 and what we're
talking about is adding 500 more okay and so
to show you evidence that of how the traffic has has gotten a little reckless
we have had 53 mailboxes either totally destroyed or damaged some 15 of them had
done multiple times and these are brick structures in general that cost roughly
$1,000 to replace and do significant damage to the vehicle if not a person
going on now here this may or may not show up okay this is what one looks like
when it gets run into this is our latest one November 22nd of last year and so
that one has has now been fixed but so it's very dangerous my wife and I well
I'll ask the question why is there so much traffic on our road why are they
moving so fast why where are they going my wife and I did a little experiment we
started out right here where the proposed development is going to go and
we decided we wanted to go to to get up to 380 at the entrance way of our
development and so this was 4 30 in the afternoon 4 o'clock 4 30 in the
afternoon on a weekday and we took this route first went up here and went back
over here now granted Mayhill is under construction and so it will improve it
won't be that many stops as many as we have now but going over here we have a
traffic light at Ryan High School and then we have another traffic light at
Mayhill and then we have a stop up here at Mills and we have another stop at
Blag and then you get to a traffic light at 380 and then you go over here that
took 3.8 miles and 16 minutes and it was two stops and three lights okay now why
are so many people coming our way I think the answer will be here pretty
obvious now if you go the other way and you go up Grissom make a stop from that
point on aside from the one lane bridge you can just put the pedal to the metal
and go right straight up to 380 there's not a stop not a single stop going up
there now we drove the speed limit I drove 32 because I was afraid you know
it's posted 30 I drove 32 so afraid somebody rear end me so so I went up
there and that road it took it was a mile less and it was five minutes instead
of 16 minutes okay thank you thank you let's take about a five-minute break
five or ten minutes we go about an hour and 20 minutes and then we'll come back
and we'll start with Gary Bowers and Bobby self will be on deck after that
all right welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council January the
8th 2019 I can't see that far it is nine it's 914 and we are back in our public
hearing portion of our agendas 6a and 6b we are with is it mr. Gary Bowers is
that's cuz they are you want to go ahead and announce who's on deck and who's in
the hole yes and and what I'll do before I recognize you if you don't mind
councilmember Meltzer has a couple questions I think he wants staff to be
researching while while we have the the discussion going on if that's correct
staff and or applicant depending on the question sure to give you kind of more
time to think about it and you know I'll just preface by saying you won't
necessarily be able to tell which way I'm going from the questions I'm I'm
actually listening so there's I've got kind of questions on both sides one you
may have covered if I missed it I apologize what is the density in the
adjacent the three adjacent manufactured housing parks this next one is going to
take a little envelope work back the envelope work is it possible to estimate
the annual revenue to the city from the development as proposed as well as
estimate the revenue from the city if conventional housing were on the site
you know with more or less the same density and description dressing those
for you well that's good and this is a little kind of a provocatively put but
but for the the applicant if these are so evidently a bad deal as has been
described why do you see a demand for them you know the buyers misinformed so
you may want to respond to that that's what I got so good I appreciate it thank
you all right go ahead recognize stage name and address you were gonna announce
who was going to be oh yeah I think mr. Bobby self is after mr. and I didn't
want to make note at the beginning of this you did say since we were voting on
two different items at the same time that you were going to try to make a
median time of about seven minutes five I understand at the beginning of the
meeting you said it would have been ten minutes if we did them separately and
you said we try to get it to seven I'm just seeing if we could have a little
bit of leeway on the ending immediately at five well I don't think I've actually
cut anybody off right at five but yeah can I get my presentation on the screen
before I start and and they'll be and the votes are separate they're not voted
on together the votes are separate I understand but since we're discussing
them together that's what we said at the beginning of the mayor yeah okay all
right Gary Bowers eight four one seven stallion Street and I'm trying to go
through this pretty quickly I don't have a canned speech for you I think pictures
speak more than words these are basically I'm going to ask the City
Council why is this a good idea for Denton and not just why shouldn't you do
this but why should you do this I'm gonna list some of the things that I
think are outside of what the vision for Denton is and I'm gonna leave it to you
guys to make that decision the city loses money you know based off of city
councilman that I know in neighboring cities I believe that their revenue rates
is about 240 250 thousand dollars on average home prices before the city
breaks even with their tax rates for city services I don't know if you know
what your number is I'm gonna guess I gave you the benefit of the doubt and
said it was thirty or forty thousand dollars less than that since you are a
larger city and you have bigger conglomerations these homes are going to
be you know by after about after evaluations probably in the thirty to
forty thousand dollar range that's what I was looking up online as far as what's
available right now brand new I'm sure that they do sell for sixty to a hundred
thousand dollars after about ten years they are going to be in the thirty to
forty thousand dollar range based off what's on the market right now if you do
the math on that you know with the five hundred units that leaves you about the
deficit of about ninety million dollars in tax base which will cost the city
about five hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in order to subsidize
this home project that's going to be put in and I just want to make sure that the
city is prepared for for that eventuality and what you're gonna have to
pay in addition to in order to support the amount of residents they're gonna be
in this population dense area to give you a comparison these are the two
manufactured home sites currently in operation according to didn't CAD first
one is 19 million dollars on a hundred acres that gets you about a hundred
ninety thousand dollars per usable acre of land the six point seven million for
thirty six acres on the one to the what is that the south side also gives you a
similar number 190,000 for the you know the Lakeview community that's up there
you know I took a swag on this one average home price in five four hundred
fifty thousand to five hundred thousand dollars an acre however if we go straight
across McKinney Street to single value homes there's 145 on 33 acres average
home selling price there is over two hundred thousand dollars that gives you
two hundred eight hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars per acre of
usable land in Denton that's a pretty significant decrease on the number of
acres and if I did the math right that actually comes out to three hundred and
seventy thousand seventy five thousand dollars in tax revenue into the city
difference between doing a single-family home and doing these planned housing
that's a pretty significant deficit to the city
let's see I should be on that thing right inaccurate zoning study and I think
you've covered some of this all of the ESA and open space proposed areas are
actually in flood plains or easements they were not buildable properties to
begin with they were just designated ESAs in open space because you couldn't
put another home there under unbuildable areas should not count towards the ESA
the actual building land according to my you know doodling around on what I can
get out of Denton CAD comes out to about 88 acres I think they verified that
that's probably really dang close when I think they said 90 acres that makes the
density more like five point six units per acre definitely on the top end
especially considering that this whole area was supposed to be was it called
ND for all right conference of plans this was your goals I would ask the City
Council to look to neighboring cities and see are they encouraging the
development of manufactured home sites is that their vision is that what they're
trying to do if you believe that that answer is yes then continue on with the
project if that's what you want to do I would say that in your conference of
plans you say that in our rural fringe areas that we want to retain character
protect protect open space and greenways enhances development value and provides
greater chances to landowners do we think that this project does that I'll
leave that to you to decide also in your conference of plans you say that we
currently have more than twice the land area needed for growth to 2030 why do we
need to make a population dense area out of this area if we have twice the amount
of land that we need to get us all the way to 2030 in fact I think that goes on
to say till 2050 and do we really have a need for this population density given
the number of apartments they're currently being constructed on McKinney
Street less than a mile away appreciating assets I think we've covered
this ad nauseam if I were to buy a new car it's worth less when I've drive it
off the lot than when I bought it oh good grief higher crime areas the only
instance of a nine plus higher crime area is right here in the current Ashley
Oaks area I think they've already addressed the number of mailboxes down
adding 500 homes would add 2,000 people thousand vehicles to the immediate area
where these you know we do not have sidewalks or curbs I can tell you from
experience that walking on that street at night is dangerous I've nearly been
hit twice even with reflective gear people are moving rather quickly down
there and I'll leave it at that thank you any questions saying none thank you
sir appreciate it thank you next speakers Bobby self and the next
speaker after that is John sit hoose so John state your name and address your
time will begin so 7800 East McKinney Street been here and then since 1980 we
used to shoot squirrels over here in the park okay anyway as I've talked spoke to
my council person on the internet I'm not good with words so sometimes it's
best if I write them down
okay as a citizen of Denton at eight dollars and fifty cents an hour times
four times four is 1360 a month and minus 312 80 23 percent entry or income
tax styles of 47 $500 for food 540 equals 547 20 lot rent 500 electric water
food water trash schools insurance and on and on this is the wages in Denton
that did oh back to myself this is why I'm here I don't care if you build one
or 50 of them this is why I'm here at Denton West mobile home park where I
grew up from age 11 to 16 it wasn't good life at Denton West mobile home park
while knowing the golden rule collectively we weren't good kids in the
community we had a lot of woods and ponds to play in then we found girls and
other things to occupier time and them in the woods and three swimming three
swimming pools and to choose from and we did we was picked on from others in
school at Congress junior high and it and it carried over into Denton high as
I rode the bus route 11 but that was us when a resident went broke now this is
the fact of somebody you buy your house you get moved in you get set up life is
good you're scratching by your somebody you live in the town Denton's cool but
if somebody went broke then West mobile home park would pick up the by the homes
and rent it out to whoever had the first and last month's rent and they they was
the bad kids and it okay does didn't ISD have the resources to take on these
extra three thousand four thousand kids heard thousand to two thousand kids it
still continues okay still continues today I overheard my boys referred to
the kids from Denton Falls as the wet-legged kids they walked to school and
don't have sidewalks now that they got me because I was them not there but you
know thank you also it was said that 15 foot front yard this is not including
the sidewalk who has a 10 foot car it looks more like the grapes of wrath
opposed to the lever town and the trailers would be sold only by them and
yes from the last meeting I understand I can sublet so that's cool because now I
have two beds in a bathroom I can rent out because I got a buddy he's got only
four kids and I got a while he's got five I only got four and we can't move
the trailer out until until it's paid for if it ever gets paid for can we take
it with us that was not answered last time okay well next question then no
that yeah that's just address council and we'll get them no low-cost housing
$500 500 rent plus trailer cost equals a lot more than a standard home and once
again thank you thank you very much any questions thank you all right the next
speaker is John is it who's okay all right and next speaker would be okay
Stephen is it least okay good evening I'm John who's I live a 7701 rodeo drive
in Denton I wanted to just talk a little bit about the model of this home of this
low this type of housing and my concerns about it when you have a home in the
ownership of the home and the ownership of the land and not go together you're
creating a great deal of leverage for a landlord who rents property to those
people when the home is when the home when the lot price goes up and the
develops or developer was very very honest this evening he said he's basing
it on market price when market prices go up he's gonna raise the rates and then
the people in those homes are gonna have to decide what do I do I can accept it I
can sell the house home to somebody else let them sign a lease with the developer
or I can move so what does it cost to move one of these homes this is not just
the case of picking up an apartment and moving it out you need to disconnect the
whole house we saw it's welded to the welded to the ground it is got skirtings
around it that needs to be removed it's got utilities that are connected that
all need to be disconnected I found this article on moving.com and according to
moving.com moving a single wide all in for a local move is five to eight
thousand dollars moving a double wide is ten to thirteen thousand dollars that's
a lot of money for somebody living in one of these homes to come up with when
their rents increased and they want to move most people I know have a hard
enough time coming up with first and last month rent and the amount of money
they need to stuff their stuff into a u-haul trailer and move it down the
street that's a lot of money and you're setting up landlords who are going to
have a lot a lot of leverage over people when they decide they don't want to take
a rent increase the other thing I want to point out and I think this was
already raised the Texas property code is very clear you have per step
protection of a homestead if you own the land the statue says land and permanently
attached improvements you can protect as your homestead they don't know the land
they can't protect as a homestead they have five thousand dollars in medical
bills somebody can foreclose on their home throw them out of their house that
doesn't happen to me that doesn't happen any of us that own the home with the
land it's also mentioned before Freddie May or Fannie Mae Freddie Mac FHA VA all
require plan ownership to loan me money in a house you're going to have a personal
property loan or a chattel loan it's going to have higher interest rates
shorter term and you your asset is going to depreciate that's why I don't like
this as an affordable housing option I do not think it's a good option I do not
think this is something that you want to expose your citizens to who will go in
and buy these thinking they're getting the same benefits as a normal homeowner
and find out the hard way that they didn't read the fine print that's all I
had to say thank you appreciate that don't see any questions okay
Stephen Leach and then next will be Sharon Spice Spies I should know that my
name is Stephen Leach I live at 8200 Oak Creek as you've heard from many of the
residents and constituents before me and you'll probably hear from the rest of
them after me and from the large stack of cars there's many of us that are
against the project in my research I just took the true cost and the long-term
value of a manufactured home I spoke with a local manufactured home seller
today that asked me to that asked me that I did he remain nameless and his
company to remain remain nameless but I will share individually if you need it
about the cost of the homes that are being planned for this development he
stated that the home start that a home starts at about fifty thousand dollars
goes up to about two hundred and fifty thousand and that he has had past
conversations with the developers of this project and they discussed home
starting in the 80 to 90 range up to about a hundred and fifty thousand which
he called upper level or upper end models of these homes so as you can see
from this sheet I basically asked him what the best case scenario on an
interest rate would be what the best case scenario is on the length of term
so that's basically what I tried to put mine on so as you can see from this
sheet the lowest expected payment would be about five hundred and sixty five
dollars a month with a maximum expected somewhere around eleven hundred dollars
a month based on those figures this is for the home itself not the land and
space rental of five hundred and fifty to six hundred dollars whatever they
decide per month utilities taxes insurance and upkeep on the home that's
the one thing that nobody's really talking about is the upkeep on this home
so the minimum cost monthly to a homeowner would be about eleven hundred
dollars a month plus utilities taxes and all the rest of the stuff what level of
income and credit would it take to get the lowest rate the longest term and can
a person make an immediate income make that designation that's something I
can't tell you because I don't know but let us consider the future of the
individual who decides to own a modular home or a manufactured home they never
own the land in this project they never own the land the home sits on the rent
and the lot space can change as often as every six months and there is no
restriction as to the increase per the Texas Property Code chapter 94
manufactured home tenancies each owner of the home decides the lot is if the
owner of the home decides the lot is not working for them do a change in family
change in a job whatever it's going to cost them between eight to ten thousand
dollars per my conversation with the gentleman to move the home in my
research through several instances where once the home is moved it cannot be
financed so let's decide let's see if the if the guy decides he wants to sell
the manufactured home this type of home depreciates when the property is not
owned by the homeowner not appreciates as stated in in these articles that I
researched from us moat from us mobile home spalling an easy home in fact this
these these articles point out that the home drops in value approximately five
percent per year and again it appreciates not appreciates like a home
should so let's take the eighty thousand dollar home at a three years that home
is worth 68 thousand dollars which is a loss of twelve thousand dollars so on
top of the lot space rent of twenty one thousand six hundred dollars and the
payments of twenty three thousand four hundred dollars the loss of the home
value puts the cost to the homeowner in three years at fifty seven thousand
dollars without adding taxes insurance and all those others that's fifteen
hundred eighty three dollars and thirty three cents a month how can a home
losing money no chance of ownership of the property and a loss of that kind of
money be a good deal for a struggling family a good example of this is the
resident that lives at eleven twenty five Trinity in just three years he
stated he was upside down in his home parked on his home on his family's
property no rent and he was still upside down in his home today that home will
cost him more to move it than the home was worth is this what we can expect
from the woodlands lastly I'd like to touch base on the notifications of the
city and the surrounding landowners as stated in the planning and zoning
meeting as stated in the planning and zoning meeting the people that lived
within 200 feet of the property were not notified I turn in three cards today I
talked to most all of those homeowners their opposition they are all in
opposition and there are residents here tonight that are showing opposition that
live right next to this project agreed maybe they don't own as much as the
gentleman to the north but not to mention the reason that we were told the
project was pulled from the last meeting was because the owner to the north
opposed it yet surprisingly today they don't why does the developer get two
years to work with the city to plan a project like this but yet the residents
around it and the residents to the north of it and the residents that are
affected it don't get the two years to work with it as well nor can we pull it
from the agenda it doesn't seem fair that this happens so I urge you to not
support the woodlands project put the safety of the citizens do not hold us
hostage for a project like they did with the city street and don't hold the
projects hostage to the planning department to get improvements made to
get approval on a project like this councilmember Melzer again you know
question for the list okay yeah any questions for the for the speaker all
right thank you and before we recognize them next week you have a question okay
go ahead yeah I mean you know we're hearing a lot of different arguments and
I and I'm you know trying to track all of them but one stream of discussion is
basically saying it's a bad deal for the buyers which strikes me as a reason why
someone might not want to buy it but you know it's not clear to me why you know
that's an argument against the project for someone who isn't doesn't want to
buy but to the extent that the view is that maybe people don't realize they're
getting a bad deal I'll be brief to get to the end I can just you're gonna stay
the question so yeah I'm getting there okay yeah but I know people are
interested in what we think so can can we I guess is a question for the city
attorney for later you know can could we conceivably require disclosures to
buyers about the particular risks of this type of purchase that was the
question okay great fantastic miss speech you're up and state your name and
address your time will begin the next speaker will be Jonathan Pruitt I'm
Sharon Spies I live at 7501 Stallion Street in Denton Texas okay I tried to
amend my thing here because of trying not to repeat what other people have said
but I am in opposition to these two items and I will focus my efforts on
the myth that this woodlands project is an affordable housing option for the
perspective residents we've had a serious problem in Denton with affordable
housing for a number of years I would like to see that change this
development is not an answer to that issue in fact it is quite the opposite
while residents of this community may own a manufactured home itself they do
not as previously stated own the land it sits on thus they will forever be in a
riddle situation for that portion the state of Texas allows landowners to
raise the rent every six months when the land rent continues to escalate and
prices them out of affordability do they move their home out to another location
with estimates of at least five to thirteen thousand dollars as previously
stated just for the transportation cost not including unhooking the utilities
or tearing down the brick skirting around the unit or having the
infrastructure beyond the immediate surrounding streets to actually move it
out of the community these manufactured homes common pieces on a flatbed and are
pieced together on site they cannot equitably or otherwise be taken back out
that way I called one manufactured community Ashley Oaks and the same zip
code very near this project that has six hundred and twenty seven units and was
told a home can be moved only if it was paid for in full so a resident is in
their home for say three years paying their loan on the house and they're
starting land rental rate of five hundred dollars the rent escalates and
they can no longer afford their home where would this leave the resident the
only option would be to sell their home back to the developer to rent or sell to
someone else on state farms website under a section title considerations when
owning a manufactured home it states one potential drawback to buy in a
manufactured home is the relatively low resale value they depreciate more like
automobiles I don't know anyone who buys a home with the intention that it will
depreciate we all look at our homes as an investment that will appreciate and
value not depreciate typical replacement homeowners insurance is not available to
them but rather a cash value policy which often doesn't cover the cost of
the unit should it be damaged or destroyed because the unit is considered
personal property as previously stated the resident would not benefit from
typical income tax write-offs the same resident would not benefit from lower
interest rate 30-year mortgage loans because they don't own the land and is
considered the unit is considered movable although as previously stated
this really isn't the case now let's discuss the number of manufactured
homes communities in Denton here's a list okay this list shows 25 communities
with 428 sites and I believe there are more I just ran out of time they are
spread throughout Denton alongside many stick-built home communities and the 76
to 208 zip code alone however there are seven manufactured communities with
1766 home sites these seven places six of the seven are in the immediate
vicinity of this project so a this is already too high of a concentration in
this area and be 4200 manufactured home sites in Denton and we still have an
affordable housing issue so is this really working this possibly this is
possibly the very reason that the area is zoned as in our four which does not
allow so at this point manufactured communities in all fairness I feel it is
necessary to interject here that I live in this is a code and Lakeview Ranch for
almost 18 years and I hope to continue to do so while I appreciate the
developers last-hour offer of the $75,000 road calming effects along Lakeview
Boulevard I am in no way want it to be contingent upon the approval of this
project those changes are separate issue between us and the city please be
certain that I am not opposing this project simply because it is near my
neighborhood a few of you on this council have interacted with me before
and I would hope believe me when I say that it truly is in my opinion does not
serve the perspective population it is targeting maybe the fact that several
surrounding towns in our area are removing these communities not because
of the perspective bias perceived bias of such a community but rather they see
it does not truly benefit those residents it's targeting let us find
another way to truly create affordable housing here in Denton one that would
help rather than hinder those than need of affordable housing thank you appreciate
it I see no questions thank you Jonathan Pruitt is up and then the
next speaker will be Tammy Pruitt I'm from 608 Trinity Boulevard to answer the
question you know everybody's talking about this being around their
neighborhood it's not it's in my back just a little closer no problem it's in
my backyard and why I say that is because literally when I walk out my
back door sit on my back deck I'm going to see a three-foot wall and an eight
foot burp a foot wall and three foot burp I believe I believe in progress I
believe in affordable housing the one thing I don't believe is that mobile
homes are gonna do that for y'all here's the fact I'm from Paris Texas it's right
down the road my grandmother was in this situation that we're talking about she
got older she got sick they forced her to sell the home that she was in the
mobile home that she had been had actually paid for but because she could
not continue to afford the rent on the property she lost that home she lost all
the resources all the assets all the money they had actually put into that
that's one fact another factor here is I put my phone up here I wanted to show
y'all we've been talking about Trinity Street we're talking about how they're
going to use McKinney and nobody's gonna use Trinity well when you see roads in
Denton usually see lights on the sides of the roads intersections things like
that I'm sorry if this is just horrible let me see if I can get it anyway don't
worry about that that Trinity Road is a country road there's I live up on a
major hill and I deal with animals all the time crossing this road deer hog
coyote the local dog horses cattle that get outside the fence this happens that
speed is 45 miles an hour going down that road as it is I'm surprised we
haven't had as many wrecks or dead animals as we do see on a daily basis
we're gonna be adding what maybe 500 at the minimum additional vehicles going
down these roads I'm sorry they're not always going to be turning left they're
gonna be turning right as well driving out going down Trinity maybe they will
go down go down to Mayheel maybe they'll go across the little bridge that's a
one-lane bridge that a lot of people don't know how to use repeatedly I've
had to back up while driving over that bridge when it was my turn to drive over
it because the idiot in front of me decided it was their turn to go across
it not an option I have when I have a small Ford Fiesta and when in my f-150
I'll usually sit there for a little bit longer not in the Fiesta that's not the
point the point is if we're gonna do affordable housing didn't maybe we
should look at building eighty a hundred thousand dollar stick mortar homes that
the people that live there can actually own not have dictations of what the
color of the paint is on the house what the fact that it's damaged that they'll
fix it but they'll probably charge you for that they'll mandate a lot more and
the city won't have the control that it has with housing standards city would
have control of housing standards of these these locations going through the
properties I don't know what control y'all have in Denton but probably not
as much another factor is these vehicles these houses will be moving back and
forth out of this property damaging the nicely built roads that didn't is
working on building for you in this area now an 18-wheeler coming in dropping off
a bunch of lumber driving out it ain't coming back when you build a stick and
we're home but when you have these buildings manufactured homes that are
moving in and out all the time you're constantly going to having that weight
that material on those roads over time it's going to degrade and destroy the
roads who's paying for that that's not part of this plan the future is not being
looked at when it comes to the roads other than what's going to be built not
what's going to be maintained it's going to damage the roads moving these mobile
homes in and out of these houses that's the other thing I want y'all to think
about when y'all decide to vote on this that's all I have to say thank you
Councilmember Meltzer question for the speaker or a question so thank you for
for staff can you provide any insight into whether surrounding cities have
been eliminating manufactured home parks just maybe you can't that's question and
and for the applicant did you consider the conventional stick-built approach
and you know if so why why did you go that way okay the next speaker is Tammy
Pruitt and then next speaker up after that will be Daniel Gilbert hi I'm Tammy
Pruitt I live at 608 it's all turn to me yes like my husband just said it's
literally gonna be in our backyard we moved out to the property about almost
three years ago this may will be three years and when we moved out there we
decided that since we were unable to have children of our own that we would
foster children so now we're running into we have this nice little country
living area that was going to be you know kind of solid for that kind of
thing and now we're running into the fact that we're gonna have a lot more
traffic coming through our front yard which like he said we live on a hill
traffic comes up over that hill we won't even back out of our driveway because the
simple fact is they're coming over that hill so fast that if we're backing out
we're gonna get nailed so we go around our roundabout and go out but basically
our main concern is just all that kind of stuff is light pollution noise
pollution all the construction is going to be really loud I'm not against
progress I understand that has to happen and but I just like I said like a lot of
people have suggested here it's not really super affordable as they are
making it sound and to me it would be better if it was something less housing
on that area less density for the for the area it would be a lot nicer to have
that I'm glad they decided to go with the one acre lots on Trinity that's
great but it's still you're looking at coming down McKinney and I mean I drive
by that every single day and just the trailer parks that are already there it's
so looks so ugly and tacky and then you're gonna add more yeah there's gonna
be a wall yeah there's maybe a thing but all those trailer parks had walls and
have fences and stuff and they're all falling down and nobody's taking care of
them so how are you gonna put it in there that from now on forever and ever
that has to be taken care of it has to be kept up because eventually
management's gonna change things are gonna change and they're all gonna fall
apart just like every other one has it's all I gotta say thank you thank you
Daniel Gilbert and then next up will be John Ziegler
I'm not really that keen on talking a bunch of people in front of me but this
map caught my eye when I was sitting here Dan Gilbert I live on 608 Trinity
my wife and I helped our daughter buy the house out there so we could come
down and visit her because we're from Wisconsin the cold country the part I
got here was is they sat there and said 200 feet around that area was the people
that were asked about we never got anything that this house is on the other
thing is I got is all of these people all these red areas are impacted by this
project not just 200 feet around the project and like she was saying that
road on Trinity Road you go up there to the church if you guys ever been on
Trinity Road and if you haven't been there go and see it I sat outside one
day just recently and I heard a car down by the two by the one-lane bridge and I
could have clocked that car going over the top of that hill of 65 miles an hour
with nobody not even knowing what was on the other side of that hill I have seen
cars slow down I slowed down and moved way over because cars were coming so
fast just recently the other day where this morning we're going back to the
house a little beetle little car I came around the corner I didn't see anybody
behind me next thing I know I've hit the top of the hill to turn in there's a car
right on my butt this is a very bad road since that bridge has gone in since we
bought this place that bridge has gone in the vehicles going down that road are
tremendous and one of the other things that happened on that road it's a junk
yard people come down there and they drop off their junk they don't want just
the other day there was there was a couch sitting in the ditch I know that
doesn't have anything to do this but what happens is something wants to get
rid of a couch and just drive down and gets rid of it I'm from Wisconsin and the
one thing I want to ask you guys you ever hear of the HUD program you heard
of it the HUD program actually takes people and it has them help build a
house their sweat equity goes into that house they have a state in that house
and it's not a very big house it's not a big stick home it's not it they don't
have a garage and in Wisconsin you'd like to have a garage with all the snow
but they have a nice little house they put sweat equity into the house and
built it I drive through this I drive around in here and I see so much land
that's just barren that that you could take and start building HUD homes in
there and have people sweat equity into the house and really want to have
something that's theirs and that's what that program is up there I'd like to see
it down here because people are going to be more wanting that house and and keep
that house up because they built it other than that that's about all I got
thank you I don't know if these questions are for you we got it we got
several questions councilmember Armitage so so I wanted to say this is just
addressing one of the issues that you brought up about the notification
process you know the 200 feet 500 feet would you would you have felt more more
listen to by by the city if instead of just focusing only on these 200 and 500
feet foot you know radii is defined by the city the whole general area whatever
people consider to be the surrounding neighborhoods affected as you said
there are all these people here are are affected would you prefer a system where
whole neighborhoods beyond that really that definition with a number on it yes
was notified yes yeah because the simple fact because all of these people have
vested interest in their homes and like like the one gentleman said the elderly
gentleman said I'm elderly too but the elderly gentleman said he said just
going down Trinity Road just the way he went and all the mailboxes that are
getting busted up on their on their road is all has started since the little
bridge went in yeah and so you would have liked to have the opportunity to
present we have to share this information with staff and council much
earlier yes yeah and so I just wanted to say and you know and I don't expect this
to you this doesn't affect the mobile home specifically but it affects this
concern that a lot of people are raising I just want to say I understand you know
how you feel about being affected by development in your area and not being
notified and good news is not that that is going to change very soon and it's
already in the process of changing in the city again it doesn't affect you know
it's not what you're here to discuss today but I know that because I'm
hearing a big part of the frustration is the notification process so I want to
let you know council has been listening to to this I heard this and felt that
before I got on council staff has been listening and this is changing good
thank you we have a couple other questions yeah we have a couple other
questions councilmember husband so I have a question for me to have and I'm
gonna add to the list so master list first then I'll ask a quick question so
I'll just say pre town could you you know what I'm thinking but can you add
can you speak to the increased traffic count when it comes to speeding so more
cars on the road what does that do to speeding and the illegal dumping so more
cars going on the road what is that what would be your anticipated effect on the
speed limit understanding that that scenario so if you could speak to that
whenever staff comes up and then mr. Gilbert thank you for speaking quick
question so did I hear you right to say if we overlay a habitat for humanity
community there of homes on that property are you representing that you
would be okay with that I'd be fine with it because you're gonna have a house
you're gonna have a home that people work to build and they're gonna own it
they're gonna own the land that's on it just like you asked me this question in
Appleton there was a there was a area that there was no homes on it it was an
old building that was tore down it was sitting there barren for a long time
habitat came in turn around and they built over six homes in this area but
the sweat equity is the people coming there and they have to help build the
home that's what you honestly that's probably what you need around here
because then they're more proud of their house that they built it okay thank you
thank you and so yes go ahead for the I have a separate question so thank you
very much sir okay so I mean I don't have to speak to it but if there were
some sort of long-term lease option that kind of merged those two worlds it may
be something worth thinking about I'm not trying to sell you on anything it's
just that's just that's came up and so it's a thought so anyway thank you all
right you bet the next speaker is John Z is it John Ziegler that right yes and
then the speaker after that will be Tim Blankenship I'm John Ziegler I live at
508 Hallam Drive here in Denton Texas just have some questions for
clarification so I'll understand better appreciate your time and your service
has there been is there or will there be any tax abatement offered by the city of
Denton in relation to either of these projects well if you'll give us the
questions we'll get those answered somewhere during our deliberations yeah
that's a pretty simple question well I'm gonna follow the process like I've asked
everybody else to as well so I don't want us as citizens to run into the
same kind of situation we ran into with Bucky's sure okay well we'll get you
we'll get your question answered tonight thank you you bet we've already got a
couple of high-density developments of a similar kind in that area my contention
is that the addition of more at this point would reduce the quality of life
for those moving in around the area already and for people in general in the
community I also have a daughter-in-law who drives regularly down that down the
road to teach at Ryan High School I'd be a little concerned for her safety forgive
my forgetfulness I'm an old fart but back in the 90s there was a similar
development let me see if I understand the concept my understanding is that the
person who lives in the home will be purchasing the home off-site to have it
built on-site they will lease the space that they are putting the home on is that
correct well based upon your your comment you said that they're going to buy the
house off-site and have it built on-site I think the house is already built and
it's moved on-site okay there was a similar development built north of
Tyler Texas where I lived years ago in the 90s and the concept was the same the
state legislature passed a law and made it illegal for a property owned by the
homeowner to sit on property they had to lease now of course the law changes over
time my question is when did the law change and in what regard okay well in
other words is this actually going to be a legal project many thanks thank you
next speaker is Tim Blankenship and just as a note we do not have any more blue
cards but you don't have to fill out a blue card to speak so after this anybody
wants to come up and speak can do so if you filled out a white card would rather
you know I mean I'm not going to try to find your name in here but be the honor
system but if you filled out a white card you can pretty much entered into
the record your opposition or support of the project but we'll still make the mic
open anybody wants to come down yes sir Tim Blankenship 1197 South Trinity Road
my wife and I have lived there for 33 years and our double wide you know is
1985 that's a lot nicer than when we bought it because we're taking good care of it I mean I'm
probably in the minority here as a supporter for the Woodlands because I am
in the business general manager for Clayton Homes and have been you know
since 1981 you cannot imagine you know the drive or desire of calls we get
weekly people looking you know for nice communities you know place their homes
in you know whether they buy from me Palm Harbor Oak Creek or whomever I've
dealt with the Hologens for many years and know the quality of communities and
the way they manage their communities over the years and you know we own our
own mortgage company and you know just as an example of some of the rates you
know you know they offer anywhere you know in the sixes you know legally you
know no community you know somebody five ten years down the road buys a piece of
land and wants to move the house whether the homes you know paid off or not you
know they can you know move that home it doesn't have to be paid off I mean you
know as long as they pay to have it moved and reset you know Vanderbilt
Mortgage will actually if it's a good quality customer that's paid timely they
will actually let them you know refinance and roll that expense to the
back you know of the loan you know to have it relocated and reset and
everything you know I mean you talk about a depreciated valued asset I mean
Metroplex wise you know rental property whether it's apartment house town home
you know rental is up 650% you know on rental property and you know the people
that do the rents you know they're making money you know the renter gets
zero equity I mean so where's the value in that to the consumer I mean that's
what I don't understand is you know private property I mean we would do a
lot more land home you know loans with our customers if the cities would
relax their zoning restrictions you know if you look not just didn't I mean I go
all over the state and most of them are very biased still against manufactured
housing and we've worked very hard you know to get away from the trailer wobbly
box stigma to more of a manufactured modular home that people can you know
take pride in but I mean I think it'd be a you know an injustice to deny it
because you know not everybody wants five ten acres to have to maintain and
mow and develop you know we get a lot of elderly folks that want a quiet nice
community to retire in I don't have to worry about maintaining a big lot you
know I mean there is you know a big big you know desire you know for our product
and always have been and always will be and you know I just think it would be a
big mistake you know to deny it and you know that's the reason I agreed to come
and visit with y'all and you know to answer your previous question FHA title
one does offer home only they can go into communities it does not have to be
a land home you know package I mean you can do a title one chattel mortgage you
know FHA VA doesn't but FHA does question councilmember armature yeah so I
wanted to ask did you know that there that city staff have been working for a
long time on now on improving or I should say changing a less biased language
our our development code to include more options to make it easier for people to
make it what do they call accessible not accessible dwelling units at ad use they
you know a granny flat a home in your backyard and to open up our zoning for
even more options all kinds of options and ours of both our zoning and our
codes so anyway that's a big work in progress but it will be coming out you
know later this year it's something that both you know homeowners should be
paying attention potential homebuyers councilmember do you have a I mean yeah
no off topic do you have a question no actually it's it's right on topic and my
question is were you aware of this I'm kind of trying to watch your face to see
if you if you were aware of this and if not please be in touch with council or
even if you are aware because it's still a work in progress and let us know I'm
saying this not just to you but to anybody listening you know what you think
should be changed or improved in the in the new development in code adjustment
process because there's there's a need for more options I just wanted you to
know councils that has been aware of this and so staff been and do you have
any suggestions council member I want us to I mean you're talking about a pretty
broad you know deed restricted just like a side build house I mean so minimum
square footage you know I mean certain percentage of landscaping fencing you
know just like most subdivisions I mean you know that's where you know you see
all the rundown like Vacation Village it's never been monitored you know
they're often McKinney you know but you know it's been let go that away because
the city and county is you know let it go and the initial developer that put
that thing in 40 50 years ago had no type of you know deed restrictions and
you know it's you know whether it's in a manufactured home community or private
property you know most people don't want to go 50 miles out because they don't
want to commute you know pay gas wear down a vehicle you know they want the
convenience of inner-city living and you know this is a viable alternative for
them okay well thank thank you thank you so much I don't mention anybody
listening this I just use it this gentleman's comments to kind of seize on
that issue because he mentioned it but this goes for everybody in the public
please continue to let council know your feedback on our zoning and codes as you
learn more about it because I think we're all listening and it's still a
work in progress thank you sir appreciate it thank you those are all
the cards we have anybody wishing to speak who hasn't spoken and preferably
who has not filled out a white card you're certainly welcome come down and
speak and state your name and address and your time will begin yes sir state
your name and address and your time will begin I wanted to address a few points
here one was my concern regarding the change in procedure regarding going from
a super majority back to just a majority vote is that our understanding we
actually were made aware there was a super majority during planning zoning so
to our surprise for those that opposed it what we weren't we were aware made
aware of that and our understanding was that it's based because of the sup which
is the second agenda item where we didn't know that the super majority was
really based on the opposition percentage and then what was really what I might
ask here is that within 24 hours of this meeting council and we found out by
happen chance that the super majority wasn't needed we would have normally
found out through here that that vote has changed so there's an opportunity
given for those around there in the communities to potentially change their
vote on that now knowing that what drives that potential of a super
majority based on landmass not based on numbers you know we asked that should we
look into why one person who owns 28% of the landmass had the opportunity to
change 24 hours before the vote his opposition to a pro why did that happen
give us the opportunity to do that you know we don't have that opportunity so
maybe it's something that we postpone this and research that second thing was
going back to P and Z their approval one of the items they brought up was is
consistent look and feel to the surrounding communities you've guys done
the math I think the two communities surrounding their she looks and Denton
Falls are roughly five and a half to six per acre on a net basis this community
is consistent on that which is about five and a half which is I think where
you're looking at that I would also my big concern about that is that if we
approve this based on the idea of look and feel that's consistent what about
the next community that the guy north of that who owns the acres there then the
people then the person that owns the 500 acres north of that so how do we want to
handle the growth and density here if we're approving this for five and a half
on the net basis granted it's four on a gross we're basically approving it
because a consistent look and feel on that roughly argument I just want to
take that in consideration as we start thinking of future developments and as
they start growing in the community because there is a lot of land out
there and what's going to go in next to that the last the other thing I wanted
to point out is that I think on the map that they had that we there's some
concern about a roadway crossing the ESA if we go back to that map there's
actually three roads that come from phase two to phase one if I recall that
correctly two roads are shown crossing the ESA there and I know that's
recommended for fire and stuff like that to get through there but if we go back
to the map I just want to make sure it's clear everybody realizes - not just one
based on that map the last thing I want to point out is that as people one of
the big concern to develop and made a lot of efforts working with the city
I'm working on a roadway plan about the right it right of how people are going
to lead the development to go to the commute namely our biggest concerns
people going through community to McKinney and cutting through Lakeview
Boulevard and Trinity Boulevard their naturally flow is going to go that way
you know I mean most people some people probably try to make a left out and go
back to the community my big concern is that it's not the people leaving it's
people coming home as you're coming home from McKinney or Frisco when you're
coming home you're gonna I'm gonna go all the way if I'm heading west on 380
I'm gonna make a left on Lakeview both the Lakeview Speedway sorry that's our
joke around here or if I'm gonna go all the way down to McKinney I'm sorry May
Hill and then McKinney and go around to my neighborhood I think it's more going
to be the former on that aspect so the other thing I would like to mention is
this is just an observation based on based on what I saw in planning and
zoning was that developer naturally had a right to you know I mean go through and
review based on questions that the city had and anything like that so but I felt
like a lot of a couple of people in planning zoning were on on the fence
there but I think there's a little bias that developer had a chance to go last
so I think as an opportunity maybe developer gets opportunity to speak maybe
you give that opportunity back to the public or representative of the public
for those that pose an opportunity to speak so there's not that bias that they
get to speak last it's all I have okay thank you any question Councilmember
O'mater yes not so much a question for you but for for the mayor can we
consider just well while it's fresh on our minds we've got lots of issues to
think about I have it I'll put it in the form of statement I would be in favor of
that that option so that people don't feel like the developer gets the last
word basically well and I understand that but basically the developer has a
rebuttal and that is they're just going to address questions that have been asked
and that's just the process so they're not going to be able to present any new
arguments standing there and redo their case so they're just no and I
appreciate that and I understand that I understand it because then you just you
know where do you where do you stop it yeah great I just want to make sure the
members are aware that I appreciate that okay can we make an exception is it in
your power to me I'm not gonna do that because we set a precedent and they're
gonna I'm gonna hold them to simply answering any questions that were posed
to them by the council or if they had any responses to the public but that's
why we have a public hearing and the applicant does I believe and the rules
get a chance for rebuttal is that correct okay this is a public hearing so
anybody wishing to speak please come down state your name and address and
your time will begin five eight nine South Trinity Road and what's your name
Cody Hogan okay so I live pretty much dead right in the middle between Lake
View and where they're building this place and I'll be honest with you when
I'm on 35 and headed home I literally will go all the way around at 288 and go
down 380 just to go home because it's faster so for me I don't you know their
income on their houses they worked hard for that and for me I've I'm not a you
know I didn't get funds to build a house or own a house I've worked my whole life
to be where I am today so like for low-income houses and everything it's I
don't think this is the right they or part to be putting there like some of
the people have said we have a ton of those and we haven't gotten anywhere from
that I just I feel like we need to work on maybe the city needs to work on other
stuff to work on income and make it an affordable the mobile homes is not
making it affordable because for my generation as an investor and this is
another thing I have someone with Highland Homes and stuff where yes they
do own the property for me I wouldn't buy one of those without owning the
property and that's even at my income which is at that area so at Highland
Homes though an investor cannot buy into that go into that neighborhood and he's
had that problem where people say hey I want 10 15 lots is that gonna happen
here where an investor can go in and buy you know mobile homes or
manufactured homes and buy 20 of them and then they get to decide how they
want to take care of those so that kind of you have to really look at that too
so with all that being said though I live on South Trinity Road and I deal
with all the all the trash and everything like that I do with people
behind my house that backs up to the other trailer park that are shooting
guns on my property all the time I have cattle I'm one of the ones that have
cattle that get out and all that so I worry about all that cattle horses and
all of that and but I've worked my butt off to get all that because that's my
investments and that's how I'm gonna build a house so with incomes I just
don't we have enough of that in didn't and to be honest with you I kind of want
to move away if this gets built and I'm gonna look toward Valley View or
anything like that because I don't want to be a part of this and so for the
younger generations I think you need to look at that because we are gonna be the
ones that are dealing with this later on so for my kids and everything we have a
couple questions I'm not sure if they're for you you're okay well let me ask
councilmember Melser is yours for that the speaker of the staff for the list
okay all right thank you sir this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak
please come down state your name and address and your time of again I think
two things you need to look at from a taxpayer standpoint from a city
standpoint the school district collection of taxes if the manufactured
housing is going down in value so are the taxes the praise of districts gonna
value that house lower and lower every year as it sits there tax revenue is
going to go down from day one number two collectibility since it's not real
estate they have the right to have a share sale on the personal property but
can they sell it and collect the taxes I think if you look at the record it's
very poor collectability on those taxes so I think you need to look at it from
next time not that it affects my traffic it does but it also affects me as a
taxpayer I share the burden just like everybody else thank you councilmember
mayor pro tem and councilmember Melser let me see if we got a couple more
speakers if we do I'll go ahead and let you ask your question but if we're
towards the end and yeah all right thank you sir appreciate that anybody else
wishing to speak it's public hearing please come down state your name and
address your time will begin
I live at 7600 Oak Creek Lane in the Lakeview Ranch of States I didn't put a
list together I figured as many speakers we had today they were going to cover my
topics we had a lot of older speakers and people have been in the community
for a long time my wife and I just built the house there we finished in July of
last year and we worked really hard to get to where we are now and to see a
community with 500 homes coming in I mean that's it just blew our mind when
we heard that I mean this is our investment here and it's going to affect
everybody including us and I think about all the trailers on mill how all how
awful they look and then I think what what's this place gonna look like in 20
years so you look the same so thank you appreciate it thank you as he's coming
down mayor pro tem if you'll pose your question and then councilmember Melsler
if you'll pose your question I'm not sure whether this would be staff or the
developer but want a little information on what the street requirements are
whether they'll be the same as a residential street or if they're smaller
than that if they'll require sidewalks within the subdivision and also the
parking requirements because I know for a single family we now require four
spaces and then councilmember Melser along similar lines with the same code
enforcement rules apply to these homes you know as applied to conventional
homes state your name and address and your time will begin I'm Dennis boots I
live it I live at 85 16 stallion Lakeview Ranch edition a lot's been said
about density tonight you've used a figure of 5.6 there are forty three
thousand five hundred and sixty square feet in an acre the lot size on these
manufactured homes is five thousand square feet that is a density of over
eight per acre thank you very much hi this anybody else wishing to speak come
down state your name and address anybody else wishing to speak call one more time
oh we've got somebody coming beating the beating the bell hi I'm Tiffany Bachman
and I'm at 8201 stallion Street one of my biggest concerns is we have no
sidewalks I have four kids that are five seven nine and fifteen and the main
reason we moved into the subdivision was because it was family friendly and I
feel like more not any offense but we're getting more of a younger crowd with
families and kids and stuff like that and we have no sidewalks I've had my
kids run off the road almost three times and this year alone to where they can't
even walk home from the school bus one block away from my house I'm actually a
realtor and I can sit here and say I'm not that concerned about our resale
value because we have mobile homes closer to our properties than other
things my biggest thing is the safety for my children their children we have no
sidewalks like I said we can't even I've had to change my whole work schedule to
pick them up from the bus because I don't want them to get hit by a car
because I've seen them almost be run over three times with the traffic when
they're at getting picked up at 330 and then middle schools for and then high
schools 430 so adding this traffic for me is terrifying and that's my biggest
what I'm most fearful about is my kids safety and I wanted to just add one
thing as a realtor there are programs out there called Home Partners of
America I feel like you know there's a big gap between affordability and the
how home prices are going up in Denton but this program actually works with
people it's a lease to home or at least a purchase program they work with credit
scores of 525 or higher they only have to put a two-month rent down payment
down and they can buy the property from this program at any point within one two
one two or three years and this company pays cash for home so I just feel like
they're without this program it looks like there's a huge gap of people not
being able to afford to buy to afford to buy and they are a program that is a
lease to purchase to where they can actually purchase the home and they only
have to put two months rent down and afford the home instead of take a chance
of putting a down payment down or buying a mobile home losing it and having to
pay to take it somewhere else Councilmember Armitage yes I just wanted to
say sorry about the sidewalk situation and I wanted to make sure that that
that gets looking looked into you know apologies if it's already been looked
into and I haven't heard about that but you know we need to make sure that I
know there have been on at Ryan recently you know sidewalk improvement but it's
it's really important that people be able to walk around in their
neighborhoods so I would hope that this would get looked into by our city staff
outside of the issue that the mobile I just think it's gonna be a hundred times
worth having 500 to a thousand more cars coming through our neighborhood in the
middle of the day with having kids not even able to walk home from a school bus
anymore or play in the front yard for I mean I don't even really let him play in
the front yard a lot of times without me being out there because I'm so scared
they're gonna get hit by a car going 40 50 miles an hour down my road and what's
it can ask what's this what's the speed limit on your street right there but you
get a lot of there's a lot of speeding all the time yeah and yeah so I mean so
you know so we need and again I have a feeling I'm probably rehashing some
things that have come up since before I got on council but looking into speed
bumps and other you know traffic calming mechanisms again I realize this is this
is in some ways outside of the issue the mobile home community but all these
people have come out and have a number of interrelated interrelated issues so
it's important we address them to councilmember breaks could you could you
repeat the name of that program please yeah it's called home partners of
America it's a lease to purchase program so what they do is they pay cash and
they have several areas in Denton as a realtor we would get them approved
through this program and it's a lease to purchase so what they do is once they're
approved and like I said they only have to have a 525 credit score higher so
when you're talking about most FHA loans and VA loans you have to have 620 625
things like that so it's coming and helping people with you know less credit
scores to be able to buy but they don't have to have all this money as a down
payment it's just two months ahead of time and they get that money back I'm
just like a deposit on a regular rental but it's a lease to purchase program to
where this program goes in pays cash for a home and then at any point during this
three years that person has the first right to purchase and either can in
their lease at one year two year or three year get their deposit back as long
as the house is in good condition or they can purchase the home and that's a
stick-and-mortar home correct like just a regular regular home yeah okay thank
you thank you all right don't see any more questions thank you very much
public hearing anybody wishing to speak one down yeah that's okay I mean I can't
yeah yeah you could have filled out a blue instead of a white one so what
stage name and address I'm sorry Ron's itch 2200 Lakeview people are there is
a mobile home park right here which I believe I just spoke to one of the staff
members it is now designated nr2 okay so the City Council Planning Zoning
Commission have designated that nr2 why well probably because the Denton 2020
plan in Denton 2030 plan wanted to maintain this as a low density housing
area and this place certainly does not do that this is extremely high density 5.25
or 5.28 that's all I had to say no one has mentioned that that was actually
designated nr2 right here and I think it's an important thing for y'all to know
all right thank you sir appreciate that anybody else wishing to speak anybody
else gonna call it one more time oh we've got I didn't hear that but let me
I'm going to speak just a half a second but I'm Linda tax at 85 33 stallion
court and I just wondered if the developer has ever talked to didn't
independent school district and the impact of having if you have 500 homes
you're gonna at least have two point I mean or two kids so that's a thousand
kids I mean is Denton High School going to be able to take care of those I know
it new high school and probably an elementary school is proposed to be
built but okay that's going to take some time and I just wonder how packed do you
want your your children into classrooms I was a schoolteacher for 25 years and I
mean I've had up to 30 kids in my classroom and I had primary kids in
other states but I'm just saying that I think maybe they should at least talk to
the didn't independent school district see it what the impact of the kids
that's all I have to say thank you thank you okay one more time I mean we'll go
as long as people come speak so you can only speak once yeah no no no no sir I'm
sorry I can't let you do that I'm sorry anybody else wishing to speak calling it
one more time anybody wishing to speak I'm going to close the public hearing
okay no question so is it permissible for so somebody who has already spoken if
they have something to say they could pass that information on to somebody who
hasn't spoken if that person chooses to say that just you probably thought of
that already you just want to put that out there the public hearing is now
closed so yeah okay let's take a about a five-minute break and then we'll start
with the questions we've got a couple people councilmember Armitra I don't
know if that's the comment you were making but councilmember Meltzer has a
question and then we'll get the questions answered and rebuttal yep you
bet thank you
welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council it is still
January the 8th 2019 it is 1047 p.m. we are reconvening for agenda items 6a and
6b we have just now closed the public hearing and what I'd like to do is sort
of give the applicant just there's some questions that were written down just
come up state what you thought you heard the question simply then provide your
answer and then we'll have at least staff come up and give the answers to
the questions have been asked and then we'll open it up to the council for for
questions and deliberation so and as mentioned before if you could just stick
real close to the questions so that you know we honor the process I appreciate
that thank you mr. Hogan yeah just repeat the question that you think that
you guys have heard and then you'll be able to answer yeah I think maybe he's
easier for you to start from the bottom and come back up whatever works for you
yeah it's a long list so I'll try there was a question about the streets all the
streets will be city of standard city standard streets cross-sections 33 foot
back-to-back sidewalks throughout the entire community on each side of the
street so I've heard the questions but that's always been our plan from day one
yeah all the streets are private there's no public roads throughout the
community so they're all maintained by the community and I think I think that
answers the question okay I know there were more questions than that yeah all
right see there was questions about had we
considered building single-family homes on that I built a few thousand
single-family homes in the last 30 years developed tens of thousands of lots for
the major builders and when we develop lots for other builders we always look
at it as a worst-case scenario if they go under and we have to take it over can
we build our way out of it and honestly between a gas plant and three
manufactured housing communities I don't want to be building homes for 300,000
plus and with the price of development of those lots being 47,000 a lot you're
gonna be 300,000 plus on your homes so no I would I would not be building
single-family homes there I think there was a question about parking driveways
and single-family yeah how many spaces there would be yeah the current code
requires two to in front which we have I think there's a new standard that's been
approved that would be if if we need to conform to that new standard we'd be
happy to I think it had additional guest parking requirements but if we want to
write that into the SUP conditions that's fine yeah yeah sure you bet yep
that would help okay yeah I asked you okay in a sort of pointed fashion if this
if these deals are so evidently horrible why do people do them do you in fact see
demand or you know or people being misled or how do you account for all the
you know discussion of what a terrible deal you know it is to get one of these
did you see a Tim Blankenship speak for you saw how slick he was he tricks him
he tricks every one of them like it's just it's choices it's what people want
to live where they want to live I've sold homes used manufactured homes I've
sold three million dollar houses everybody's got the same four questions
how much down how much per month can I qualify and are you gonna be nice to me
and then they pick what type of product they want some people want to live in
apartments and want to pay rent some people want to rent houses some people
want to buy a manufactured home they live in a community some people want to
buy manufactured home and live on their own piece of land some people want to
build stick built homes some people want to buy used homes it's people are
different but when Jones Lang was how gave us a report talking about the need
and how all the parks and communities were filled up here I went to the Palm
Harbor dealership on I-35 and said hey do you really have a need for additional
lots and he said Michael I lose more deals for lack of a place to put the
home than I do for bad credit so to me that said yeah there's definitely a
demand but I don't sell the homes I depend on the dealers so so whoever asks
questions of the applicant that if you need to repeat them just let's go ahead
and repeat them in a wanting not new ones but ones that you've asked before
and this that comes up in the discussion so yeah yeah so is that well okay all
right fair enough okay well we'll sort of we'll move
forward here for the staff answers and then if council members if you if the
if something refreshes your memory we'll we'll bring you back up thank you
Steph you've got to list and then if we need some help on reminding and then
we'll start our deliberation good evening I'll try to just go through go
through the list I think maybe a couple were answered council member Hudson on
the first regarding where did the idea for the agreement for payment come up
with respect to the 75,000 as part of the and it's reflected in in the minutes
from P and Z as part of the motion for the rezoning there were the conditions
that staff had in there regarding the overlay there was an additional condition
that was requested to be put in place regarding the applicant working with
with Lakeview Lakeview ranch to mitigate the traffic in that or within that area
specifically a goal of reducing traffic issues in the neighborhood at that time
it was advised by the WC attorney that that was more of an appropriate motion
for the SGP during that time the developer got up and said that they
would be willing to do that and so that's really where it started and then
we ended up having a subsequent meeting with the HOA as pre-chem developed that
we came back to them and said hey we had a meeting these these are what this is
what staff had developed are you are you willing to cover the cost of this if
that is a condition put on it and so it wasn't sort of a it had to be done but
that that was sort of the where it came from thank you so so I just want to
during that meeting with the HOA were there any comments that that's a
negative thing that the developer implement those or pay for those
implementations I'm trying to think back to that meeting and I don't even know if
I don't recall this bring that bring that up I could be wrong but but I don't
recall I don't recall having that mentioning that one last thing so either
way it wasn't the developers idea it was something that originated with P&Z with
in some form or fashion that ultimately was handed down and they they picked up
so it wasn't some top-heavy malicious hey this is what I can do to okay thank
you so I just want to kind of jump in here on that because I actually asked for
staff to go out to the neighborhood hearing their concerns and wanting them
to come up with a plan to address the concerns that were heard and listen to
them because I've heard them for a couple of years and so with the the new
people here on staff you guys did that and I assume pretend went back found a
workable solution for the issues that he heard at that meeting and for me what I
would like to think was that that was developed as a solution that the city
could do for a neighborhood that is struggling and has been with traffic
issues not that it would be you know sort of kind of dependent upon a certain
development and so whether or not this development happens I would still like to
make sure that those issues do not get thrown away and so when I when I did ask
for clarification on that that if we could do these improvements that it
currently they're not funded but if council wishes that we could discuss
those in the future and continue to look at that so I just kind of wanted to put
that out there that to me there they're two separate two separate things and
because PNC requested something and then I also as a district representative
requested something my request wasn't based upon the
development I just echo councilmember Briggs kind of remembering how that
occurred and pre temp has already started to work on a list of kind of
short-term wins some of the other ideas that have been brought up tonight in
terms of sidewalks those are much longer term projects simply because require a
significant contribution of right away in that neighborhood and but we're
happy to continue that moving forward and and I just wanted to back that up
that there's absolutely no link in terms of the city funding necessary projects
around this the city and in terms in connecting them to a development we don't
count on development projects to do our CIP so I appreciate you clearing that
out thank you councilmember Briggs and thank you Todd that's reassuring to hear
I wanted to second councilmember Biggs request that these issues with with
with traffic people speeding lack of sidewalks that these issues be
addressed because clearly these are problems that are not new problems that
have been going on for a long time and I'm hearing and you know I recognize it
very well the sound of people who who just feel like they have not been heard
for a long time and I know how frustrating that is I'm not saying from
you I know you're brand new you know but but I know that feeling and people aren't
looking for anyone to blame people are just looking for answers solutions so
let's see to those solutions that you know that said I think people who have
come out to pose mobile homes are not going to be happy with how I'm going to
vote because I'm in favor of the mobile homes I'll explain why later but I want
to see to it that that these issues are taken care of and I look forward to to
having these discussions on council councilmember Melcer well is this a
question regarding that or no I just want to ask so we get back to answering
the question yes what I was gonna okay yes good great questions yep I got my
list shoot yep surrounding density of the adjacent the park to the actually
oaks to the west just under six units an acre there at five point nine nine to
the east five point one two the small park to the I guess to the northeast it's
a 12 acre park however they've reduced the number of mobile homes and there's
substantially I think they have about 12 in there right now so they're at one per
acre there was another question regarding what surrounding cities or
communities what have they done to reduce are they in fact are they in fact
doing that one again without doing an extent in extensive exhaustive research
there was some information that the public had talked about the planning
zoning Commission meeting again I don't whether it was anecdotally or not
regarding little elm again I want to talk about another city but but but that
was discussed it that they did remove a number of or were successful in
eliminating a number of mobile home parks I did go back look through their
minutes and I want to say around 2008 2010 there was a discussion about
existing mobile home parks in the in little elm at that time there was an
ordinance that was passed that allowed existing parks to apply for an SUP in
order to grant them themselves a legal non-conforming status from what again
from what I'm reading only two of those parks applied so there were a number of
parks that were considered non-conforming what the city also did is
they created whether they created or had at that time two different mobile home
park zoning districts so they had an MH one which was parks that had
individually platted lots essentially and then an MH two which would kind of
fit fit the model where they were they were leased and so that's in the short
time that was at least what I was able to find from our neighbor neighbor to
the east there was a question regarding valuation and again so this is very very
back back of the envelope what what I did was I looked at I just took Ashley
Oaks 104 acres what their current their current value is almost 19 million so
from 17 to 18 their value again assessed value increased approximately 14% there
and so what I did is I just took it on an acre basis so on an acre basis their
tax amount overall their taxes for 2018 are assessed at 458 say 459 thousand of
that the city's portion is roughly a hundred and twenty one thousand and so
that's the equivalent of one thousand one sixty four an acre I took the
residential subdivision just to the west and sort of just picked one or one or
two lots looked at the value those lots are approximately seven thousand square
feet and so I just extrapolated that out on an acre basis and interestingly their
about their assessed values went up about nine and a half percent from 17 to 18
and they're roughly paying just over 5,000 an acre again that's improvement
and some of them had swimming pools so there's a there's a you know a number of
considerations but this was just acre to acre regardless of what what's on
there if I may yeah first of all I'm just like totally floored by your ability
to do you know research and analysis on the fly I just want to I want to make
sure I track what the bottom line was then so so you know as proposed it's how
much money and then if it were you know conventional like what what are the sort
of two numbers to compare and you did it on a per acre basis I did it on a
correct me to blow it up by a hundred and what do we sound 26 and I would
assume the value because this is newer the value is probably going to be higher
again I'm just just making that assumption and it is it is larger as
well but but just looking at Ashley Oaks there at there at say 1100 or 1164 an
acre to the city 1164 on the acre and single families 5,028 on the acre that's
land and improvements okay so and then there's some had homestead exemptions
some didn't so there's there's a million variables order of magnitude a thousand
versus five thousand five thousand and then we're talking about 126 acres thank
you Ryan did you have a question yes is kind of a follow up on that because we've
talked earlier about that the the homes would be personal property and so was
this just the value that the the park is paying correct doesn't include the
personal property so that include the appreciation isn't seen in there we're
seeing the appreciation of the land but not correct it there's there's also
another it could be it could be real property but I don't want to get into
that hole yeah yeah I understand I mean it's and yes go ahead yeah I just I just
took the what they're paying on on on the land and their improvements meaning
that I think there's a clubhouse pool and some other community community
facilities out there I know there was another question I think the streets
streets and parking may have been may have been addressed code enforcement I
guess yes in short answer they would be subject to our property maintenance
standards in addition there's also this other layer of the SGP requirements and
so we have certain conditions within the SGP stating that those must be written
into a deed restriction they are still conditions of the of the SGP that that
are enforceable by the city I know there was a question on we started getting a
breakdown on density and I think I might have followed it and so the one that's
more Hudson me that a different impetus but there's the point made about how
many square feet are in an acre and if the 5,000 43 really eight or you know
what is it 43 560 square feet per acre yes the density really eight plus or is
it five point six or is it I think then I think the net density is roughly five
point four but just to give you an idea because I know one of the questions had
to do with the amount of land dedicated to the streets and so we try to again
just do some some quick math generally I think the the amount of land that you
dedicate for for for rights away or sidewalks use 15 to 20 percent of the
overall site so if you have 126 you know whether it's 24 acres to say just to
kind of give you a breakdown so I took 120 acres separated the six acres out
so if we keep the 120 with 497 units that's four point one four just on on
that number and then so what I did is I took the from the 120 I subtracted
essentially 30 34 acres for the ESA and open space which brought it down to 86
acres and then I took the 497 times 5,000 now I'm going to square feet so
so the 86 is the equivalent of three just over 3.7 million the 497 times 5,000
is roughly 2.5 and so that gave a sort of left a balance of 29 acres and so it's
sort of within that ballpark so if you consider the dedication of just over
three acres for for post oak that they have to plus their internal streets and
then some other dedication along McKinney so I'm sorry post oak McKinney
that's roughly four to five acres so we're sort of in that in in that ballpark
again these are broad numbers but just wanted to give that that breakdown
because I know the question was asked if that helps yeah I think that I think the
difficulty is because the gentleman who came down basically I mean we were we
been it's been shared that the lot sizes are about 5,000 feet and that if you have
five houses or five modular homes in line at 5,000 feet that's 25,000 feet
that's almost 20,000 feet less than what an actual acre is so it's really the way
that you're approaching it is very different from a density level than if
what when you're on the ground and you say okay here's an acre of land you got
the street out in front how many spots do you have for that acre of land that's
really what the density is on the ground outside of whether it's gross whether
it's net whether you get a an offset or things such as that so I think that was
the point that was trying to be made was we talked about this from the
calculation perspective but then when it's on the ground what is it exactly
like with the those mobile homes that are next door and those those
developments and those are two different things there's I mean you're coming at
it from the way that we do it and sometimes that does work out to a higher
density than what's stated because you are getting the offsets you know the net
and gross acreage so I think that's that's the difference it's two
different paradigms to approach councilmember Briggs so I I have
questions here but I did not state them earlier well but that's fine we're in
deliberation I mean do you have many more that we're trying to answer I think
I think okay so now you can't ask any more questions I wanted to make sure we
were in the face sure no yeah we're in the face we're in the face unless it was
this a previous question or yeah it was a pre temp on the his isn't outlook on
traffic increase what it does a speeding okay and dumping okay good evening this
mayor council members pretend they smoke city traffic engineer to answer your
question your question was does the increase in traffic volume has any
impact on the speed of vehicles on the street directly no but as the volume
reaches a critical level which is the capacity of the street then obviously
there is congestion which may result in decrease in speed of vehicles along that
street but there is no direct impact on the speed itself of course there is some
impact on the safety and incident levels which may go up with the increased
volume thank you okay all right yeah for the city manager I'd asked whether it's
conceivable conceivable from like a consumer protection point of view to
require a disclosure of the risks inherent in you know this particular kind
of housing in other words risk of depreciation for one and everything we
heard tonight is it is it legal feasible to require disclosure of the specific
risks of this kind of arrangement to prospective renters one of the things I
would to answer the question one of the question one of the recommendations I
was going to have Richard come back up when this council's deliberating was to
actually go over the criteria that you're used to approve these two separate
zoning items there's been a lot of discussion here tonight regarding the
financing mechanism ownership and stuff like that but it's these are these you
know these are really relevant as issues to you to everyone here but for purposes
of the zoning and the SUP these aren't really related to those types of
applications that are before you tonight so I would not recommend that such a
provision be put in an SUP thanks a councilmember breaks okay so I have I'm
just curious on the drainage improvements that were listed as stuff
that the developer was going to do if anything this may be for engineering if
anything went on that property the same type of drainage improvements would need
to be not not you the our staff our the same type of improvements would need to
be done as well and like the lift station I'm not sure what that I mean if
you could explain that and why so we're asking the development has to do with
wastewater issues then it does stormwater issues now they do tend to go
hand-in-hand just in the simple fact that both are typically gravity controlled
so wastewater typically flows downhill so it is stormwater but you put a lift
station in because the water has very few places to go so the lift station
pushes it back uphill so to speak that being the case that would tell you that
there are drainage issues out there as far as what other drainage issues to be
aware of out there we do we are working with the state to address the bridge
itself on Trinity the other issues I'm not aware I could look into that more
and see what's out out there to be done right well what I'm saying is that the
issues that the developer is doing for the improvements are because of this
development they're not something that needs to be done or the city should be
doing anyway correct or I wouldn't be able to answer that right now I don't
know I would have to look into that exactly where that's coming from okay
all right thank you that was before okay okay so another kind of question similar
to councilmember Melters for city attorney so would it would it be
appropriate in an SUP for it for zoning and in this kind of vote to set a date
of September 2020 to say that on this particular vote if of course the
developer agreed to to say if we let me see how to put this if if we haven't
made the Mayhill improvements by September 2020 then they get to go ahead
then they can go ahead but setting that as you know with the understanding that
they could not build before then I think the what that discussion there was had
earlier the the timeline that developer had put out was as far as when the
street that the street improvements would be made would be sometime at the
end of September 2020 at that they would be amenable to put a condition that they
would not pull a building permit for I guess the individual lot sites until such
time but until that date however if the streets aren't done by that time that
they would after September 30th they would be able to pull the permit and so
you know developer would have to correct me if that if I misinterpreted what was
being discussed clear you have two roadways that were mentioned in that
scheme there was Mayhill and there's McKinney Mayhill is under current
construction is about halfway through construction it will be done faster
provided that the weather cooperates with us McKinney itself will not start
construction until later this year and that is a requirement that we have for
the funding locked in for that project so the funding is already locked in for
that so yeah I would be and I know how it feels maybe it's not possible to
reach an agreement that makes everybody everybody happy but I know how that feels
to be in the public and to hear you know to hear to be assured orally you know
yes this this will happen yes this will happen and I know the feeling of well I
want that in writing so I would advocate for kind of as much as we can put in
writing in terms of timeline of course we should only put something in writing
if we can you know commit to it so but I will I'm not a negotiator you know I may
representative make sure everybody remembers when it comes to the McKinney
Street project itself is that the funding is locked in by start of
construction yep the hard part with that construction is any type any type of
roadway of any distance will take anywhere from 12 months 24 months or
even longer depending on how long it goes how long the roadway is to build
that is all contingent upon whether that we don't have other constraints that hit
the project so you're at you're looking for a date just take into account that I
cannot guarantee those things yeah and thank you so much for your honesty that
makes perfect sense is so you're talking about McKinney with Mayhill obviously
you can't you can't predict the wet with the weather on McKinney you can't
predict them wet weather on mail either would September 30th 2020 seem like a
feasible deadline that the city could agree to we would not agree to provide
that I mean obviously we have our goals that we're trying to hit these issues
but Todd does not control the economy work slowdowns the weather that we just
could not responsibly make that commitment to you okay yeah and thank
you for your honesty I that makes a lot of sense to me I hope you know and I'm
gonna keep keep pushing I know I don't expect people to be happy with that this
is just yet another oral promise but that you know we do whatever we can to
you know if not make people in the neighborhood happy at least try to make
people less unhappy with with you know the way this is going and I know some of
that is is up just is up to the weather and uncontrollables but anyway but but I
tried but that does make sense to me so if it thank you for at least allowing us
to have have this conversation because I think it's important to have it in front
of the public so I'm gonna and I just want to say this and certainly gonna
recognize you I certainly want to hear the questions want to hear the comments
but I think probably my hunch is I could be wrong that we all pretty much know
where we're gonna stand unless we have a couple pieces of information that we
need to be able to make our decision so I'd like us to get to the deliberative
part pretty quickly because I'm not so sure that we're all so undecided up
here as as it may seem and there's no sense in extending it out so we've
talked about a lot of things tonight and there's a couple of people who haven't
talked much like mayor pro tem he is a man of very few words so certainly know
he's gonna want to say things the councilmember husband so my point being
we've asked a lot of questions I think we all probably know where we stand if
we don't if you don't know where you stand let's ask the question that will
get you there and then let's just let's wrap this up and bring it to a
conclusion of a vote so I just want to give you that encouragement it's not
trying to shut down discussion or deliberation but if you already know
where you are why keep arguing about things that that aren't gonna really
make a big difference so councilmember councilmember Briggs well I do know
where I am but I wanted to say that as far as the the McKinney Road and I asked
for some traffic information because we do have the traffic counts for what the
woodlands would be which is four thousand seven hundred and forty daily
trips there on that already cluster of a mess and then we have two recently
approved apartment complexes on that same in that same area just across the
way a little bit adding another 3500 so just if this a project is approved it
would be eight thousand two hundred and forty more trips right there in that
area and to have no guarantee of that time frame on the work on the roads to
be completed and being a driver in that area I cannot consciously approve this
project for the density that is being requested because of because of those
reasons alright councilmember Melcher to try to get you the question just just
briefly there are arguments about it's a bad deal which I think the market should
take care of that if it's a bad deal people shouldn't take it there there's
discussions of density that really pertain that don't pertain to whether you
allow manufactured housing or not you're gonna have density one way or the other
I think it's pretty clear that there's going to be development there and all
the issues of traffic and school capacity and all that they're the same
whether you do manufactured housing or not an extra construction noise would
probably be less the one thing that stands out that is different is revenue
to the city to pay for the resources that those residents will need and I
think the answer to this is no I'm asking the city manager is there any is
there any precedent of a concept where there where there'd be payment in lieu
of taxes in a situation like this where there's such a clear you know demand on
city resources or is that like so far outside the scope of the way SPS work
that there's really no way to do that well in many communities around the
country they would require a fiscal impact analysis to accompany a rezoning
application and that has not been a requirement of the city of Denton's I
mean it's something I definitely want to talk to the council about so in those
cases yeah you would have that as a negotiating point but I think you're I
think your point is right in terms of with the development residential rarely
pays for itself the commercial development and industrials what
subsidizes the residential development in this particular case you're talking
about tax figures that are going to come in at 20 to 30 percent of what a single
family home density would be which is I think the point you're making but it
would be it would be kind of voluntary on the petitioners side of that subject
to some kind of a fiscal impact analysis but we don't currently have the code
requirement for that so
council member pro tem thank you mayor just got a few things I'm very torn on
which way to go on this and I put a lot of thought into it one thing we've
always dealt with density at a gross level that's that's how our code reads
so to start trying to work it in here that it's a 5.5 or something like that
doesn't really make that much sense to me you know a lot of things were were
said tonight about it on on manufactured housing that it's you're stuck in a rut
it's you know you're you're constantly there you know they they get you and you
can never leave I lived I guess it was in the late 80s in manufactured housing
got a lot of friends and family who have lived in manufactured housing and moved
up went from that to a house to you know Frisco to you know friend that's you
know out on a hundred acres right now because they advanced there's just a
step in life many of us in our 20s that's what we could afford and that's
what we did you know and recently it's been a couple years now I guess that
Denton West shut down that was 310 units that was on the list that the one lady
provided that is no longer available many of our our manufactured housing or
mobile home parks in town are very old the question was asked about the zoning
on the why it was in our two and the other one is actually RDX 5 is a zoning
on that which means that they were developed in the county without the
guidelines that we have as a city to make sure that's a proper development
and and then and then they were annexed in and so again you're looking at some
very much older trailer parks in these areas you know one I looked at back in
the early to mid 80s is Lakewood down there off of Ryan and in Teasley Lane
and it today is still in very good shape it's not as nice as what this one
appears it's going to be but
also on that list there was 5301 McKinney was listed twice under two
different names so to try and say what we had on stock is not necessarily a
hundred percent true there might have been some that were missed it is not
necessarily the most affordable it's comparable to an apartment in pricing
but for some people it's that stepping stone you go from the apartment to that
and then into a real home and then into even a bigger home some some not get
stuck in there but that's just you know some are stuck in apartments for their
entire lives yeah my wife and I own an apartment complex and one we've one
complex with somebody that moved in in 1982 who is still living there in that
same apartment so it's always life choices and you know I believe that
everyone should have the choice as to what they should do as far as location
because of the other parks in that area it's very difficult to to see what else
might go in there I mean it's just I think bringing a nice development in
there might get some some other investor to decide to buy these other parks and
clean them up and straighten them up so that that's kind of my hope is they're
gonna lose you know the people that are in these others may be some of the first
customers the issue of you know will we finish McKinney McKinney Street by
September of 2020 one thing we've got pressure right now from the Regional
Transportation Commission that we had to actually do an extension because
we'd fallen behind and now we're under the gun we've got to get that road done
whether may be a problem but if we're delayed by a few months on it there's
not going to be 497 homes there on October 1st I can pretty much guarantee
you that so with all that said yeah I'm going to be voting in favor of this
project Councilmember Hudson thank you question for the applicant to that were
brought up in comments that weren't answered if that's okay so the question
is is one is several subletting allowed and then two is there a limitation or a
prohibition against investors buying a bunch of homes and then just subletting
or using them as rental properties yeah it's a individual lease with an
individual so it you can't come in and buy our lease ten lots or 50 lots or
anything like that you have one line for your home for your actual home and can
that person that signs a lease sublet it only if it was a if if the person
leasing that home got approved for the lot because they're gonna have to pay
the rent on the lot so you lost me if you did a contract or lease for that lot
you put your home on it and then you decided you wanted to lease your home
that person's gonna have to come in and go through a background check just make
sure they're okay before they move in your home yes they can rent it they just
have to qualify for the lot rental they have to run a background check if I put
a lot in there they're gonna they're gonna qualify me to pay the rent on the
lot if I want to rent it if I move out and want to rent it the tenant that I
get in there is gonna have to come in and then qualify for that lot rent as
well okay so can somebody educate me on how that's policed what was the question
how is that managed so if I if I qualify I'm in a home on your property and I
decide I want to sublet it how do you know you tell me you're one of your
neighbors tell me that's the only way to know okay please it's the same as an
apartment film you have to tell the landlord so okay thank you
councilmember armature okay so I've asked a number of questions I've said
some things but I haven't really said you know why I'm voting in favor of
these these mobile homes so I just wanted to read the speech that is this
short is partly my worth partly a letter from somebody else and so this is what I
want to read I've been soliciting input from Denton residents who live in mobile
homes about why they chose to buy and own their own mobile homes and rent the
use of the land versus renting an apartment buying a 300k plus home with
the land it comes on being cost-prohibitive for low-income families
just not an option I've asked them what they see is the pros and cons mostly
what I'm hearing comes down to the simple fact that when options are limited
as they are for people just by what you can pay for you go with option that
feels like the best investment for you nobody can decide what is the right
living arrangement for a person but the person making that decision themselves
as I see it and this is my view our job as a city government is not to get in
the way of new options that are safe for the people living in them and around
them if there are traffic safety concerns to be addressed traffic and
pedestrian safety concerns and if they can be addressed then it's our duty as a
city to address them are the current limited options for low-income denton
it's perfect no are they truly affordable meaning do people have an
easy time paying from no I technically I can afford to live my own house in my
own house I consider myself very lucky I struggle I'm living on a lot of credit
card debt my struggles are not as hard though as the struggles of people who
have you know that's money to me but everybody's struggling in our own way so
there's no perfect solution people are living above their means just to put a
roof of some kind over their kids heads but of the imperfect and for everyone
expensive housing options currently within reach for low-income people as
in the options that we have right now some choose to live in mobile homes and
and I believe the city has to do all we can to maximize people's living options
not minimize them finally I want to share with you in an email I received
from Laura Barnett who lives in the Hickory Creek mobile community and owns
her own mobile home and here's why she says I'm a mother of four children my
husband and I chose to move back into Denton five years ago to raise our
children here we had lived in many different types of apartments due to our
budget and income several years ago we could no longer put up with living in a
tiny apartment that was still high with rent along with utilities for our family
we were not at the point in life where we could afford the high cost of renting
or owning a foundation home and chose the best way to still have our own
little home was to look into a mobile home we rented a mobile home which was
still better than an apartment where we had a yard and more space inside and by
the way I'm not saying mobile homes are better than apartments there's no one
size fits all but this is this particular person's individual's decision
after a year of renting we chose to purchase mobile home until we ready to
make a bigger purchase of a foundation home many families benefit greatly in a
mobile home community although many individuals who hear the words trailer
park and I know the people who live in mobile home communities well some people
don't like to hear the term mobile home but I hear a lot of people who live in
them they call a mobile home but people tend not to like the term trailer park
so much they think of dirty nasty trashy I'm not implying those are the things
are said here this is just what this person is writing to me these are the
stereotypes she says those are not the things our community is very clean tons
of families a nice park and basketball court the community has guidelines and
keeps everything clean along with all residents have to follow by all the
rules are there are consequences the cost of living is so much and with low
income families a mobile home is way more beneficial financially for most the
community we live in is on the south side of town yes we are surrounded by
really nice HOA neighborhoods right by Geyer High School but the families who
live here Councilmember Armitter are you almost finished this is this is we sat
here for three hours and these people have sat here patiently and you're
reading basically a public statement from someone outside of this this body
so I want to hear what you have to say so wrap it up please okay
sorry this is what this is what she says sorry she says the families who live
here are no different than those homeowners who live in a two-story home
down the road I hope that anyone who hears or reads this can see that having
a mobile home community is no different than another neighborhood or apartment
complex around town apologies that our city is growing so much we need more
affordable options for individuals and families to choose them with their
living arrangements and the reason why I took the time to read this is because
I've been all the input I've been getting from people who live in mobile
homes they're mostly moms and they can't come out to council they can't come out
they didn't even know about this until I started soliciting for them so you know
they they share your your your pain about about not not knowing about this
they didn't know this was an issue so I wanted to take the time just to
represent people who haven't been represented this is just one person but
thank you for taking the time apologies for my emotion but I think it's
important to get that point of view so I'm speaking this is my view this is me
speaking through my or rather my constituents speaking through me I feel
like that's my job to you know to represent people and I'm not gonna make
everybody happy but I want to really try to represent people who aren't who feel
that they're not being represented so thank you councilman Meltzer just one
point that hasn't been made you know the core issue generally with SPS is
compatibility and if we accept that even though this is a very stigmatized kind
of housing there's a demand for it and if we look at this parcel I mean I kind
of end up where I started it's between three mobile home parks now so you know
where if there's a demand for that kind of housing where would you put it if you
have not exactly there so I just wanted to register that point anybody else I'm
gonna have the password customer husband pushing the button how about that yeah
so I have a myriad of things but the short answer is I was waiting for it I
was gonna just do it during the comment section where it goes after the motion
in second or I can plug it in now it's whatever whatever the chair okay so for
me I do I see the warts I I'm frustrated by the stories of the two-hour process
to put this in perspective I was elected in 2017 I met with these gentlemen when
I was on the planning and zoning board and it was first coming around then or
at first I was made aware of it was a year or so before I was elected and I've
been here two years and I'm back at it and so that whole thing is is is
frustrating to me and I don't know I mean I work hard with staff to make sure a
consultant told us early he said he said early on he said be clearly wrong early
so that we can get to an answer for you so that we can get to an answer for the
developer and we can move on and not drag this thing out over three years so
that being said absolutely respect the neighborhood the concerns there I don't
think there's a great answer here the the the streets the sidewalks the gated
community give me some piece that it's going to be managed better the lack of
the abilities to buy investments some piece there but the the lack of policing
of subletting is something that that I'm going to try to understand better you
know because I just think that's that's important it's counterintuitive that
we're saying hey even if it depending on how you look at it but if you look at it
as a step up then it should be that it shouldn't be an opportunity for someone
to subvert the system or you know work around the system somehow I share the
neighborhoods concern about the streets but that gives me pause because it's
your neighbors right I mean if you're telling me that people in other parts of
the city are speeding through your neighborhood I don't know that I make
that connection I think it's your neighborhood your neighbors go to that
area because it is kind of cut out and so I have a hard time as I'm looking at
the interest of the entire city because I just don't buy into that singer there
the the people in district one represent me and that's who that that's who that's
who votes for me but I vote on all issues across the city so I just I don't
like that kind of that silo look at it I have to do what's best for the city of
Denton in every turn and so I just caution you because I've seen it in my
neighborhood they have the police come out they patrol area next thing you know
I'm getting emails from my neighbor saying hey I'm getting a whole bunch of
tickets I'm like yeah that's Bob on the other street that said come out and do
that so so it's important to understand who's going to be who's going to pay the
price for the police officers coming out more and the traffic calming and the
speed humps and the tires coming out alignment because there's road humps
whatever that is that's gonna be your neighbors but at the end of the day
that's kind of the thing it's for me that the tipping point is that I do
believe I see it like an apartment complex I don't think you can get houses
because you look at every conversation we have and gas wells are an absolute
issue and to say that you're gonna put houses directly across the street from
where Atmos Energy stores its gas and that's not going away that's not a well
that's not being tracked at the time that is an active issue all day every
day and I've talked to people that work there and understand that dynamic enough
to say it is very different than wells and wells are a very big issue currently
we'll have one next week I mean so those are issues that aren't easily done and
so to put an entire neighborhood across there and they can do mobile homes now
that's other thing that swings my decision is by right they can put a
mobile home in there tomorrow and there's nothing we could do about it and
so that that leads into that that so those are kind of the tipping points for
me that they can do it by right that the speeding issue is has been there I hope
we can get that addressed but but that's nothing new to make it punitive for this
individual and and it absolutely is flawed for certain I'm not saying it is
not but I think it it's not flawed to a degree that that I would say it doesn't
have some it doesn't earn the right based on the current code to move forward
so I just have a question of clarification you said they can do it by
right that they can put a mobile home where by right so staff said in my notes
and I'm gonna paraphrase because to save time one per five acres they could do
now no I mean I thought you had to have an SEP for the mobile home park within
the within the RD within the RD five mobile homes are permitted by right well
that's one per five acres correct that's what I said oh okay I'm sorry I didn't
hear that I didn't hear the five acres okay so they could put in hundred they
could put in about 20 compared to 500 it would be on the 108 118 118 yeah okay
okay okay okay okay sorry I missed I missed the five acre part I apologize
today yeah okay any other comments thank y'all so much for your patience you've
been through this twice I appreciate that thank you all for your patience and and
working through all the issues obviously I'm not gonna support it's nothing
personally against you or your company or I'd look at it as a density issue I
think when we start deciding what to put somewhere based upon what's already
there because it's the worst that you know well there's nothing else is gonna
go there so we might as well put that there I don't know if I really make
decisions from that perspective and I think Councilmember Husbeth points out a
very good point this it is across from something that's more permanent I mean
we've got a lot of people in this community who are very active about
residential communities going in close to gas facilities and you have a storage
facility right across the way it is really a multifamily complex I mean
basically is what it is you've just got the owners purchasing the improvement
and then renting the land as a land lease so I just opposed the zoning plain
and simple as far as the NR six zoning and it was asked for to for this
specific development and understand that not going to get into all the nuances of
affordable housing those kinds of things but I will just say it sounds like this
is going to pass and I hope people revisit this development five and ten
years from now and I hope that it still looks exactly the same because if you
can move in there and you can rent an apartment all right and you can rent one
of those and you even go and get qualified then you're going to have this
become primarily a rental community which I'm not saying rental communities
by nature are bad but I think the question for me is do I believe this is
the proper zoning for this area based upon what I've heard from the the
residents what I've heard from the developer and you mentioned that somehow
in the purchase of this land somebody didn't disclose that there was a non
development or development agreement a non annexation agreement well I'm
surprised we didn't see that in the court filings because if somebody were
gonna sell something and didn't disclose something that pertinent that's a major
major major problem so I can understand your surprise when that all the sudden
surfaced that would be quite surprising and it forced you into this process you
self admitted this is not the process you wanted to go through simply because
of the discussion that we're having tonight and that's not a bad thing I
totally get that but that's why we have those type of agreements in place so I'm
not going to support either one of these I just I don't think the zoning is
appropriate I understand the arguments about rents and mobile homes and all
that but I'll say this and I'm not comparing them but when you talk about
if it's so bad of a deal why aren't people doing it well I can tell you
right now people every day make decisions to do things that are not in
their best interest now it's not up to our job to police that it's not up to
us to police that but it's up to us to be aware of it and that's why we passed
a regulation an ordinance regulating payday lending all right so you could
make the same argument people are making choices they're doing that who are we to
govern that so I'm not going to be supporting it it's nothing against the
developer it's not saying that they're bad and y'all are good I just don't
think that in the grand scheme of things in the city of Denton the density at
this at this location given the issues that we have not addressed as a city for
this neighborhood in general have been addressed and I think we need to do
that prior to that and I just this council has had a philosophy of trying
to find neighborhoods with less density and we're talking about single family
stick built homes so this seems to be outside of that this is pushing to the
very top of the 2030 plan it's basically not only pushing at the top it's really
you know moving over it and we have that plan for a reason so I will not be
supporting that now we're gonna take two separate votes so we've closed the
public hearing on both of them we've had our discussion so what I will do is call
for council action on the first item which is agenda item six I'm sorry ma'am
oh sure to my knowledge there's been no tax abatements offered and there's not
gonna be to my knowledge I mean I haven't heard anything nobody's asked for
it so yes I appreciate that thank you and
I thought about that me sure need to answer that so agenda item 6a chair
would entertain a motion or action on agenda item 6a yeah I motion yep
councilmember Archer sorry a motion for 16 okay we have a motion for approval of
6a mayor pro tem I'll second we have a motion in second let's vote on the board
please before you all vote yes I just wanted to remind you I know the staff
had recommended overlay conditions if Richard can say that to you if you want
those included and this is on the zoning 6a this is on the zoning
so that there were there are essentially two conditions with respect to the
overlay it's probably easier for me just to show it rather than read it but at
least wanted to have those have those up there for clarification okay so the
motions being made with these conditions is that correct okay yes I'm new for
these conditions okay all right so we have a motion in a second with the
conditions as recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission let's
vote on the board please oh I need to hit the wrong one so we're going to
retake a vote I hit yes and I needed to hit no so if we could clear that out I'm
not gonna say it's automatic either because I don't vote yes all the time
okay all right let's try that again thank y'all for your indulgence motion
carries four to two now we'll move on to agenda item 6b chair would entertain a
motion for agenda item 6b
motion chair would enter in entertain a motion councilmember armature okay I
move for item 6b councilmember Husband second there's no conditions on that
SGP is that correct yes there are there are okay thank you been a long night this
one's a little bit trickier and I always say that there were when it went to P&Z
there was essentially just that the one condition with respect to the SGP
conditions outlined in exhibit 7 which are attached to the ordinance there was
the additional condition that that we had recommended with respect to the 75,000
that's not made part of the the ordinance but this is just something to
consider so I wanted to just bring that to the council's attention so these are
conditions for the spending of this money for traffic improvements correct
attached to this SGP number number two okay yes all right and is that your
motion would that contain your motion councilmember yes okay and councilmember
husband yes and I have a question after okay because we got him okay mayor pro
Tim yes are we going to also add the condition that no permits for the single
dwellings would be issued until October 1st of 2020 that's that's up to the
motion or in the second yeah I I mean I I would like that in there and they the
the developers is good with that okay I realize it's not ideal but yes yes and
so we've marked we've noted that condition was this September 30th or
October 1st I just wanted to clarify like he showed he showed October 1st on
okay I had mentioned September 30th and then I got the sense that staff was
saying okay okay councilmember husband you have a question yes what can staff
educate me on the timing on the because I agree that I'd like to get the
improvements on the street in place so I don't know what the timing is on that
but can someone educate me I think we can start working on the design portion
of it I think the way this is written up the the funding for this particular
aspect will not be available until the building permit is issued so the funding
for implementing some of this will not be available so we'll have the design
and the plan ready but I'll be dependent on the funding being available so mr.
city manager yeah that's not acceptable yes so we can we can go on the couch
with the understanding that we'll put it back yes or we'll just we'll research
that some sort of expedited approach to it
my question was is the city who's going to be doing the actual like since we're
going to be initially paying for it do we have to put out go through the
process of putting out an RFP I mean does that complicate things who's going
to do the construction so in this case I would advocate that the city would
actually design those measures now that could be done either through in-house
design staff which we do have and are capable of doing those items we also
have multiple contracts or vendors that have been approved as an RFQ could be
done through a small contract so based on availability and the go-forward from
council we could move a lot quicker on that thank you okay we have a if y'all
could punch back up please whoever made the motion I think councilmember Amartya
you made the motion thank you and councilmember hudspeth all right we
have a motion and a second with the associate conditions as approved by
planning and zone zoning for the SUP and also the condition as added about no
permit can be started within a date certain let's vote on the board please
motion carries four to two we have gone through agenda item 6c so we're at
concluding items I do have a concluding item mr. city attorney I you know we
we've had a couple of instances where we've had emails read and we've had
things that have been talked about from people receiving real-time questions or
comments from people outside the meeting I just need to know if that's is that a
violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act or what do we need to do with that
because I get concerned when we have public meetings and and I don't give
individuals right to have a second shot once we close the public meeting so I
just need some some guidance on that with the law appreciate that who else
concluding items councilmember Amartya yeah yeah so that's also procedural thing
I like a staff report on looking at kind of different ways of doing our recusal
forums when we recuse ourselves from certain closed meetings or individual
items on the on those forums there's not really a space where counsel gets to
write or staff or whoever in their own words and prose if they choose here's my
explanation for what this conflict is it's just you check a box you know is
it a conflict of interest you make you know certain you know is this your
employer so I think it would be nice to do something like that I've been finding
myself doing something like that and I have to write right in the margins and I
feel like such a rebel doing it but I think it's nice for the public record you
know to have that information there maybe not make it mandatory but anyway
sorry I'd like a staff report on that possibility making sure it's complies
with Toma and you know all that thanks councilmember Brian thank you man I'd
like for staff to look into a means to notify council members at least district
council members maybe the at-large as well when a developer is having a
pre-planning public meeting that we would be notified so we could attend so
that we don't end up with the day after they have a public meeting the developer
does that we end up with 30 emails and have no idea what what it even is
because it's still in the early processes that we can attend the meeting
if we desire okay I have a few things first off I want to start off by
thanking Pat Smith and the sweat team I had a constituent who had a really big
issue with a hard driveway when the house was built the contractor did not
put rebarb in it and so it crushed down and crushed her pipes and so they did
all the work because she couldn't question have the money or didn't
qualify for certain other things and so I'm just really glad to have them in our
community that they stepped up to do that and wanted to acknowledge that
publicly and then also I wanted to request two things I want to request
that we start doing actual fiscal impact analysis as the city manager said and
then I would like to request a staff report on getting an affordable housing
board advisory advisory board something that will actually address the issue so
that when so that we can have a group of citizens developers city whomever
together to actually try to to tackle the issue that that is a real issue and
hopefully by doing that we can we can accomplish real change thank you I was
going to ask for that economic impact assessment to two votes I'd also like an
ISR and the advisability and feasibility of requiring a disclosure of unique
financial risks to prospective renters and manufactured home developments that
require purchase of the home I'd like to request that code enforcement take a
look at the other manufactured home parks in the vicinity of the woodlands
in the vicinity of the woodlands given the sort of anecdotal statements we've
heard tonight regarding the landfill permit that we discussed earlier today
in work session I opined that that that permit has nothing to do with whether
we're aggressive in our recyclability and sustainability initiatives so I'd
just like to urge my colleagues to help me prove it this year by prioritizing
the vetting in this cycle of multifamily recycling and curbside residential and
commercial composting let's not keep kicking the can down the road on
assessing these opportunities to extend the life of our existing landfill okay
anybody else we made it it's 1157 and we will now stand adjourned it's still yesterday