Hello and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for
Wednesday, February 6, 2019.
This is our work session, and with the quorum present, I will call us to order at 5.03 p.m.
Working down our agenda, we're going to go to our work session reports, and A is introduce
new staff.
Good afternoon.
I guess good afternoon.
Good evening.
I just wanted to introduce, I know we've had some new faces, and just wanted to properly
introduce I guess some of our new staff members.
We have a new planner that started with us last week, Corina Maldonado.
Corina is a planner, came from the North Texas cog.
So you'll probably be seeing her sooner than later, so she's already been assigned a number
of projects, and so we kind of threw her in the deep end of the pool, but she's keeping
her head above water, so.
This was just a position that we had on field.
And then we also have Mark Laird.
Mark is now a senior planner with us.
Mark was previously in real estate, so now he's moved over to development services, and
so he's helping really more on the real estate end as well as with a lot of the platting,
and so you'll probably eventually start seeing Mark present some items as it relates to platting.
Charlie, you probably met Charlie, but I figure I'll give a proper introduction.
Charlie Rosendahl, Charlie is our business, I always get, business services manager, and
he came over from I guess the city manager's office, and so he's now in development services,
so he's handling a lot of our business services and management stuff.
I'm going to introduce Christy Wells.
She's not a development services employee.
She is our environmental services coordinator, and so I think she might have been introduced
maybe six months, eight months, but she'll be presenting tonight, and I think that's
it with the exception of Ron.
Make sure everyone knows Ron, just give Ron a hard time.
And that's it.
Okay.
Well, welcome new staff.
Next item is hold a discussion on annexation process regarding city services.
That would be Cindy Jackson.
I handed out a lot of three handouts that are pertinent to this presentation.
We thought since Julie's been doing the boot camp with you that we would go ahead and give
you a little short course on annexation as well.
Now when you're thinking of annexation, what comes to mind first, there's three questions
with regard to annexation.
One is why does the city want to annex?
Two is by what authority does the city have to annex?
And three is what procedures must the city follow to annex?
Why annex?
As you know, we have no authority in the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction, or ETJ, over land use and design
standards.
All we have really is platting authority out there, and of course if there's our water
and sewer out there, we have authority over the design.
So the why annex?
Want to gain more control over the land use and development in the areas that are in the
ETJ.
To ensure that residents and businesses outside the city's corporate limits who benefit from
access of city facilities or services share the tax burden associated with constructing
and maintaining those facilities.
Because when you're in the ETJ but you're on city water and sewer, you don't pay the
taxes to support the maintenance and upkeep of that city water and sewer.
Now with regards to authority to annex, Denton is a home rule city.
That means we have a population over 5,000, and we are allowed to do what is authorized
by our city charter, and we are not specifically prohibited or preempted by the Texas Constitution
or state or federal law.
Annexation procedures.
Now here's where it gets interesting.
Last year, SB 6, Senate Bill 6, was approved by the state legislature in August, and well
actually it was in 2017, and it went into effect December 1, 2017.
The legislation provides revised procedures for voluntary and involuntary annexations
depending on what tier you're in.
The bill divides cities and counties into tiers.
Now tier one counties are those counties with a population of less than 500,000, and tier
two counties are those counties with a population over 5,000.
Now Denton County is a tier two city.
A tier two municipality is a city that is wholly or partly located in a tier two county.
Since Denton is a tier two county, the city of Denton is a tier two city by virtue of
being located in Denton County.
There's also additional regulations that must be considered.
A city may only annex an area that is contiguous to the current city limits.
So for example, if we have a development that's two and a half miles away from city limits,
and they want to annex into the city to make use of our water and sewer, we can't do it
unless they can convince all the property owners between them and the city limits that
they want to annex into so that we can connect, and that really, that doesn't happen too often.
A city can only annex property that is located in the city ETJ, and a city cannot annex an
area that has an agricultural, wildlife management, or timber management exemption unless we first
offer a pre-annexation development agreement to the landowner.
Commissioner Beck?
Quick question.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
The ETJ, is that, if it's not city, is it county?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
That's right.
So we're taking from the county, we have the authority to do that, I guess you're saying.
Okay.
All right.
It's still in the county.
We're not taking it away from the county.
But it becomes part of the...
What we're doing is annexing it into the city.
Right.
The county does not have zoning authority.
So the county would issue permits, but the city plaits.
So the county, if somebody wants to build something in the ETJ, and it's on our ETJ,
we would first require, the county would send them over to the city and tell them, "You
have to plait through the city first, have it recorded, then come back to us, and then
you can get your building permit."
Okay.
We're going to have legal say a few words here, too.
Yeah.
I was just going to point out, and I don't mean to steal any of Cindy's thunder here
or anything like that, but I like to think about the ETJ as under the children's game
dibs.
If it's in our ETJ, we've got dibs on it for annexation.
No other city can grab it.
And so by statute, because of the size of the city of Denton, we've got an ETJ of five
miles, but we can't get any of the ETJ that some other city has already claimed within
that five miles.
And so that's why you sometimes see kind of a strange looking ETJ with some cities having
their own little bubbles.
There's lots of little cities that we've kind of, our ETJ has gone out around it and
what have you.
So once it's in our ETJ, it's ours to decide whether to annex or not, and not in other
cities.
And if I'm correct, if there's some sort of conflict over which city has the ETJ, what
we do is we look and see when the extension was approved and whoever was first gets the
ETJ.
Procedures for a tier two municipality are divided into three categories, petitioned
by landowner, which is a voluntary annexation, annexation of areas with a population of less
than 200, and annexation of areas with a population of more than 200.
I'm going to go into specifics about the voluntary annexations, that's what we see most.
We haven't yet seen a voluntary annexation under this new law.
I don't expect to, to be honest with you and you'll understand why when I go through it.
Voluntary annexations, the process for voluntary annexation is we receive a petition for annexation
and we negotiate and execute the written service agreement.
We schedule two public hearings with the city council to be held at least 10 days apart.
We provide written notice to school districts, public entities, railroads, et cetera, before
the publication requirement that is below for publishing notice in the newspaper for
each public hearing.
We have to publish it at least once and the notice posted on the city's website, leaving
it up until the date of the hearing, and then we conduct a second public hearing.
Now the Texas local government code has a lot of specific requirements for the timing
of all of this, and typically it takes sitting down with a counter, a calendar and counting
out days to figure out which public hearings it's going to go to, when to send out the
notices and all.
After the state requirements -- Thank you, Chair.
On the school districts, just written notification doesn't have to be any actual negotiation
with the school districts to say that, hey, this part of the ETJ is annexed in.
Do you guys have the capacity to take this in?
There's nothing like that.
We do deal with the school districts.
I'm getting to that.
I'll shut up.
We've had all the notification requirements have been met.
The two public hearings have been held.
The city charter, section 103 also has requirements, and we have two additional meetings that are
required after the public hearings.
After the second public hearing, we have what's called the first reading of the ordinance
before council, in which we just go before council, read the caption of the ordinance.
Then we have to publish the entire annexation ordinance in the newspaper, and then 30 days
after that was published in the newspaper, we have the second reading and adoption of
the annexation ordinance by the council.
Now, the service plan process.
Each annexation provides a service plan, which details the schedule for when certain services
will be provided, and when they'll be provided immediately upon annexation, and if they're
not available immediately upon annexation, we detail when they will be provided.
If there are services that are not listed in the service plan, then after it's approved,
we are not required to provide them.
We're pretty comprehensive in our services, though, as you'll see.
Prior to the writing of a service plan, this is an actual form that was sent out for Lake
View Estates.
This is the front page.
We sent out a questionnaire to the service providers asking for input regarding the provision
of service to each site.
It's typically based on location and proposed use, and we also give the size of the area.
The following service providers received this form, Water and Wastewater, Engineering and
Construction, Police and Fire EMS, Parks and Recreation, Denton ISD, and Electric DME.
What they do is they return ... I typically give them a deadline.
I need to have these within an excellent amount of days.
Typically, I try to give them two weeks.
They then send them back to me, and the information that is sent back to me is compiled into the
service plan document.
The service plan document is then sent to the applicant, and it becomes part of the
annexation ordinance.
Now, the annexation schedule, this is an actual annexation schedule for Creekside.
The Texas Local Government Code specifies an annexation schedule for each type of annexation.
Now, voluntary annexations are governed by subchapter C3 of the Local Government Code.
The schedule includes annexation ... This schedule that I'm showing you includes annexation
procedures required by the city as well.
Typically, what I do is I list all of the city council meetings that are within the
next four months.
From that, I figure out when the notices have to go out, which has to be the 30th day before
the first hearing, the deadline to post the council agenda.
When the city council adopts the ordinance setting the dates, we have to have a separate
meeting ... Oh, well, thank you.
We have to have a separate meeting to set the dates for the annexations.
Once we have an actual ordinance that states we are going to have the first public hearing
on this date and the second public hearing on this date ... I'm not going to read the
whole thing.
You can see it.
That's typically how we work the annexation schedule.
Here, I provided for you a table which shows a comparison between the different types of
annexations.
Now, we've got voluntary, which I just went through, and then we've got involuntary annexation
of areas of less than 200 people.
Again, the service plan and schedule will be approved with the resolution to pursue
the annexation.
A petition of registered voters in the subject property has to go out into the annexation
area, has to be signed by 50 percent of the voters within that required area.
If there are not that many registered voters in the area, 50 percent of the landowners
shall be given the petition and they have to approve the annexation.
If, after we send out this petition, we receive a petition protesting the annexation, it is
received and validated by the city secretary, an election will have to be held, and the
election will only be held in that area of the annexation.
The voters that live in that area will then have the opportunity to vote on whether or
not they want to annex into the city.
The same is for annexation of areas of at least 200 people, however, the petition is
only required if the registered voters of the subject area do not own more than 50 percent
of the land.
Consent to annex must be then obtained by petition.
It is a pretty involved process and an election is required, regardless, for an involuntary
annexation of more than 200 people.
And the notices, you can see there, are the same as for the voluntary annexation as far
as the timing, written notices to school districts, service providers, railroads, notices public
in the newspaper.
>>Cindy, I think Commissioner Smith has a question.
>>Thank you, Chair.
On the involuntary of less than 200 people, the petition of protest, does it -- there's
not a percentage or a population amount?
Is it just one person signing a petition counts as a petition of protest?
>>Could you answer that for me, Jerry, because I'm not certain to be off the top of my head.
I would have to -- I think I'll have to look that up and I'll get back to you on that.
>>Right.
>>Yeah, I'm sorry.
I didn't look into that before the meeting.
>>I've got the Texas local government code with me, so I can look that up real quick
for you.
>>Thanks.
>>Now, as you can see --
>>Commissioner Beck.
>>Thank you, Vice Chair.
Okay.
At the beginning, you said that we would annex into the residents and businesses outside the
city's corporate limits who benefit from access to the city facility of service.
So obviously, they're able to utilize some of our services now.
So if they vote not to be annexed --
>>Then they --
>>Then we'll get our services in?
>>Yep.
>>We can cut them off?
>>If the services are already there, that's --
>>But they will continue to use them or we cut them off?
>>Well, we haven't come up with that situation.
>>Oh, okay.
>>I don't imagine that we --
>>We cut them off.
>>If they're lawfully receiving services, there'd be no reason to cut them off.
>>Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
>>Really, the SB6 --
>>Commissioner Coles.
>>I have a question for you.
>>Put restrictions on involuntary annexation?
I'm sorry?
>>I have a question.
>>Mm-hmm.
>>Okay, let's say some of the areas that were annexed the last decade or so, they're on
septic and a water well.
>>Mm-hmm.
>>Do we give them the opportunity to tap into the city services?
Who pays for that?
You know, I mean --
>>If they're in the city, once the city extends services out there, yes, they are given the
opportunity to tap into that.
>>And that's not the property owner's cost?
Or is it?
>>That I don't know.
>>Yeah.
Do you know that, Jerry?
>>Yes.
If they're not currently city services and somebody wants to tap in, then they would
have to pay for the extension of the lines out to their property.
And then there would be also, you know, the fee for tying onto it as well.
But if it's already there, then obviously they don't have to pay for the extension.
>>I wanted to say that, really, the changes with SB6 are the limitations that it puts
on involuntary annexation.
We did not have these limitations on involuntary annexation before, and now it -- we can only
involuntary annex unless -- when the property owners in the area approve it.
Additional regulations with regards to annexation -- I already covered the first one -- has
to be contiguous to the city limits.
A city can only annex property that is in the city ETJ.
I think we already covered that one as well.
And the city cannot annex an area that has agricultural, wildlife management, or timber
management exemption unless the city offers a pre-annexation development agreement.
And we covered that as well.
Now Ordinance 2017-071, approved by the city in February 2017, established specific criteria
determining the annexation of areas in the ETJ when significant development is proposed.
So for example, we have a property that wants to put in a multifamily development.
It's located in our ETJ.
It's not located in the city.
It is contiguous to city limits.
It wants to use city water and sewer, and it is located within the city -- what we call
city CCN, which is certificate of -- oh, I had that -- certificate of -- I can't remember.
Do you remember what it is, Jerry, the CCN?
Oh, certificate of convenience and necessity.
Thank you.
I was just talking about it an hour ago now.
These are some of the criteria that were established for when we would involuntarily annex.
All we did was we would first go to the property owner and explain to them because you're going
to be using city services, you're in our CCN, and you are also adjacent to our city limits.
We are going to request that you voluntarily annex into the city to access the services.
If they said, "No, I don't want to do that," we actually did involuntarily annex a property
owner.
It's the only one that we did under that law, isn't it, Ron?
Yeah.
Once SB6 was approved a few months later, that amendment pretty much became defunct,
and we have to follow the state regulations with regards to involuntary annexation.
Okay.
This is the ETJ map of the city of Denton, and you'll see the limits of the ETJ and how
they follow the city limit line.
It's not a straight line.
As was mentioned previously, for a city of 100,000 or more, the ETJ will extend five
miles from the city limit line.
Now we have been annexing properties for the past couple of years, and we are expected
that we are going to adjust the ETJ limits to reflect the new city limit lines and move
it five miles out from the new city limit line sometime this year.
The pre-annexation development agreement that we offer people, this would typically include
the following.
The agreed upon zoning designation of the site, development standards such as lot size
and dimensions, permitted uses, open space, tree preservations.
I actually gave you a copy of the pre-annexation development agreement for Creekside, which
is the most recent one, and it's very extensive, 76 pages long, and it sets timing of development,
timing of permits, street standards, what plants can be planted.
You can take a look through it and you'll see how extensive it is.
It really is like a plan development.
As I said, Creekside is the most recently approved plan development amendment, and you
can see here is the land use concept plan for Creekside.
It was approved by council on August 23, 2016.
We did learn some lessons with this particular pre-annexation development agreement.
I don't know if you'll recall, some of you may recall the zoning that came through for
Creekside that was after the plotting had been approved.
We have since what we're going to do now, we've got three pre-annexation agreements
that we're working on right now.
We are going to bring them before the Planning and Zoning Commission for comment, before
they move forward to City Council for approval, so we can incorporate any comments, get the
approval from the applicant and move forward.
We want to make sure that you're involved in the process.
We don't want anybody to be blindsided this time.
Once the agreement is, oh, I already covered that, and that's just the Creekside agreement,
the cover page.
The agreement is approved by the City Council as an ordinance, as you'll see.
After pre-annexation development agreements will be brought to the Planning and Zoning
Commission.
I've already covered that, got ahead of myself.
We've also got what we call NAA, a non-annexation development agreement.
Now, this is the agreement that we were talking about where if we cannot annex areas that
are used for agricultural, wildlife preservation, et cetera, if the people who own the property
do not want to be annexed, we can negotiate an NAA with them and guarantee the site won't
be annexed for a certain number of years, providing following conditions.
Property will not be used for any purpose other than agricultural, wildlife management
or timber management and incidental activities, and the owner agrees not to plot the property
or commence with any development on the site.
We have had a few through the years since this went through in 2010.
The ones that we've got right now were approved in 2010, and we have had a few instances where
the owners have sold the property and the new owners want to develop the property, and
that's when we institute annexation.
Yes?
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
On the NAA, if there is currently, so I'm assuming that when you say you limit it to
just those purposes, any type of like home ranch style thing, whether it's out the ETJ,
those don't count if someone's living on the land?
Oh, no.
Okay.
Doesn't preclude it for me.
That's incidental activities.
Incidental.
Got it.
Okay.
Understood.
Didn't know that.
All right.
Thank you.
If they have this non-annexation development agreement in place, and they do commence some
kind of development, what does the City do?
Should the property owner commence development on the subject side?
The City considers it to be a petition for voluntary annexation per the agreement, and
we begin annexation proceedings.
We have the approved non-annexation development agreements come from 2009, 2010.
In the previous Denton plan, there was an ambitious plan for annexation and growth,
and the goals of the annexation were to protect the North I-35 corridor, protect the future
West Loop 288 corridor, manage the growth in the CCN area, manage land uses and types
of development in the areas, create a logical, contiguous City of Denton boundary, and provide
future growth areas as recommended by the Denton plan.
What we did, the City did, is create a map showing what we call PAAs, which are potential
annexation areas, and DHs, and you'll see the DHs right here.
We call them donut holes.
Very technical with our terms.
Donut holes are areas that are surrounded by the City, but they're not annexed into
the City.
This map actually shows the pink areas here are the areas that have NAAs in effect right
now, and all the hatched areas are areas which have been annexed into the City as a result
of this program.
The NAAs that were originally approved in 2010 and 2016 were extended to 2020.
That means they are due to expire next year, and about this time next year, we will be
going to the City Council for direction on whether they want to annex these areas into
the City, or if they want to extend the NAA further.
Per local government code, the NAA can be extended for up to 45 years.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Per the rules you said earlier where you cannot have annexation unless you are contiguous
with the City limits, so like if you look at PAA 3, it doesn't look like, because there's
NAA in between PAA 3 and that NAA there, does that mean that if they're touching a land
that has NAA, does the contiguous ability skip the NAA?
Because it looks like that PAA 13 isn't touching, it got annexed in, but it's not touching City
limits.
So I just didn't know what the rules were there.
The rules were there is that with the NAAs, it's going to be in the City.
We consider it to be in the City, but not annexed if that makes any sense to you.
Basically the NAA is kind of saying it doesn't exist, that if your land is up against another
parcel of land that has NAA on it and that parcel of land is in or against City limits,
then you can gain annexation.
What you need to understand is each PAA was one piece at one time, contiguous to the City
limits, the property owners, some of them agreed to annexation, some of them did not,
and that's why we ended up with the hop, skip and a jump type of thing.
And Jerry, did you want to weigh in on that?
Yeah, I think that's basically the point is that each of these, when they were initially
proposed, there was no annex land in there, that's the whole point, but they met the eligibility
criteria when they were proposed for annexation, it's just that our annexation was suspended
because of the operation of this law that required us to extend the NAAs.
Thank you.
That concludes my presentation.
Are there any other questions?
Great, I don't see any.
Yeah, if I can add one point, we didn't really go into the fact that we've got within our
ETJ Division 1 and Division 2, and for annexation it's irrelevant for the most part.
It's just that there were a couple of maps there where, you know, you see the ETJ listed
out there and it was Division 1 only.
Division 1 is kind of an inner layer with Division 2 being the outer layer of it.
Division 2 was the one that has the 5-mile radius from the city limits by virtue of the
size of the city of Denton.
Division 1 is established by an agreement with the county that we entered into a couple
of decades back and does not expand every time the city grows.
In fact, there are parts of the city that are even outside of Division 1.
Division 1 is set by where we have the CCNs for providing water service and what have
you.
And, you know, as our water service grows and our weightless water service grows, that's
when we should be going to the county and extending the Division 1 annexation.
That's where we have control over, as he was saying, platting and some of our development
standards only.
Division 2, we don't have any control over it.
It's just an area that's possibly -- that could possibly be annexed and it will expand
with the city.
In fact, over to the west, we're probably one annexation away from being over in Wise
County as far as our Division 2 ETJ is concerned.
Jerry, can you answer this question when -- we have a volunteer annexation and we do a service
agreement.
Is there a time limit on that as far as when we would execute services with them?
It could be provided in there and, in fact, there's a provision of state law and one of
these annexation areas took advantage of it where they could challenge our service agreement
and suggest that it's inadequate for providing services and doesn't meet the standards imposed
by state law and they could have an arbitration over it.
There was this one area, DH-12, where we had one of those arbitrations and I'm one of about
two people who's participated, one to my knowledge, and so the -- that area was saying that our
water tie-in policies were unfair and we persuaded the arbitrator that it's consistent with services
throughout the city that even if you're in the city limits, if you don't have a waterline
near you, you may have to pay to extend it to tie into it whether you're inside the city
limits or not.
And, in fact, if you're inside the city limits and, you know, you have a big enough lot,
you may be able to build a septic system or have a well.
So there are opportunities to challenge the sufficiency of that.
We also entered into negotiations with the area pursuant to some requirements of state
law as well.
Is there a typical rule of thumb on a -- on timing on that?
I don't know many of the planners, but no, but that's really not a legal issue as far
as what kind of timing would be there, but it's something that could be put in, I suppose.
Okay.
Thank you, Cindy.
And Jerry.
Okay.
Moving down our agenda, we are to clarification of agenda items.
So we will move to our minutes.
Does anyone have any concerns, questions, thoughts on the minutes?
Okay.
How about the consent agenda?
Easy, easy.
Okay.
No questions there.
With regard to public hearings, A, B, and C, Andy -- no, A, B, and C have all been postponed
to February 20th.
So that will bring us to public hearing D, and I will invite Sean Jacobson up for that
discussion.
Thank you, Chair, and members of the committee.
Tonight we're looking at a residential replat of the fire station D addition.
And to start off, I want to briefly explain to you this is going to be a little different
than a final plat or a preliminary plat.
It can be a little bit confusing, so I just want to lay out why this is coming to you
as a public hearing.
Texas local government code, you can see there, 212.0146, states that in cases of a replat
without vacation, which basically means we've got a plat there, we're putting a new one
on top of it to redraw the lines, and we're not vacating the old plat, you'd have to have
a public hearing.
It has to be noticed, so similar to what we would do with the rezoning, we send out letters
to anyone who has -- any property owner within that subdivision, as well as within 200 feet
of that property.
And that's specifically with a residential replat.
So the public hearing is required for any replat.
For a residential replat, you have to notice it, just to give anyone living in that area
the chance to, if they have some concern, ask a question, express if they have a problem
with that, and, you know, express, you know, let us know.
So that's why you're going to see a little bit of a difference here, rather than it being
on consent agenda, we actually do have a public hearing in this case.
So as you can see here, this was the original subdivision, this is the original plat.
We had two lots, and what we're looking at is specifically lot two tonight.
So see there, we're now -- the property owner is now looking to split that into two lots,
R1 and R2.
This area is zoned NR3.
Both of these lots meet the minimum lot size requirements, as noted, within this zoning
district meets all the technical requirements, and for that reason, staff is recommending
approval of this residential replat.
With that, if you have any questions, let me know.
>> Anybody have questions?
Okay.
Thank you, Sean.
Next public hearing item E, good Samaritan East tract.
That is Ron.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission.
This is going to be a tag team effort between myself and Kristi Upton.
The request for you tonight is to consider making a recommendation to city council on
an alternative ESA plan.
The ESA plan is to cross a riparian stream buffer, and I won't go into the details of
that riparian stream buffer, Kristi will make that presentation, is to eventually develop
a single family development of approximately 140 lots on this tract that is approximately
45 acres.
You can see on this map here, generally located to south of Ryan and west of Roxbury Street,
which is here in Teasley, it's just not too far east of this subject property.
I just want to make the commission note that this right here is the Lake Forest Park, and
then this is the good Samaritan development to the west.
And again, as if when this develop happens, they will be looking at accessing sewer and
water and all the different utilities as part of the platting.
I know that you all didn't have any questions on the preliminary plat.
There is a preliminary plat on the consent agenda that's related to this alternative
ESA.
When you consider the preliminary plat, it will be approved, however, there is a note
on that preliminary plat that if the alternative ESA through city council is altered or not
approved, that preliminary plat will need to be revised.
So just a point of clarification.
With that, I'm going to ask Christy to come up and make her presentation.
Thank you, Ron.
Good evening.
Christy Upton, Environmental Compliance Coordinator for the City of Denton.
And the first thing I wanted to do was to give you a little background on why there
is an ESA on this property.
The city identified riparian buffers and upland habitat on this property during the preliminary
review of the information from geographical information that was made available to us
in years past and created a map and these habitats were existent on this property.
The first one, the riparian buffers, there was an unnamed tributary.
It runs along the upper portion of this northeast corner, northwest corner of the property and
it is an ephemeral stream and there was a 100 foot riparian buffer that was put across
around the stream and during the assessment it was rated in fair condition and that was
using the rapid stream assessment tool that the city of Denton uses.
And then there was a second riparian buffer identified and it's an intermittent stream
that bisects that northern part of the property.
It's also a 100 foot riparian buffer and again rated in fair condition.
The cross timbers upland habitat that was identified originally was 10.9 acres that
the city had identified on that.
The assessment found that some of that upland habitat no longer exists.
For example, this finger here and that's because it's isolated from the rest of the upland
habitat and it was removed but during the assessment it was found that there was other
parts of the property where upland habitat had established and that was added for an
increase in the overall upland habitat to 20.6 acres.
And I also want to point out on that upland habitat, I know you had a classification on
the habitat along the riparian areas.
What kind of classification, is this a fair habitat or is it poor condition or is that
important?
I'm sorry, I'll have to defer to Debra on this.
Good evening, Commission, my name is Debra Villara, Environmental Services.
Isafil assessment for upland habitat does not provide a rating system for upland habitat.
The only one that we have a rating system is for riparian buffers.
So pretty much we use the size of the tree area, more than 10 acres, and the presence
of the species, indicative species of the cross timber habitat to determine the existence
of it.
But we don't have a rating system for upland habitat.
Okay, because, I mean, going in there, there's a lot of eastern cedar, and eastern cedar
is considered a very invasive species in upland habitat.
So looking at what you have there, 5, 10 years from now, eastern cedar is going to pretty
much be the dominant species or 10, 15 years from now, that will be the dominant species.
So what's being considered, as far as for future, keeping that as upland habitat?
Because from what you look at, it's a very poor condition.
So that would be my question.
Yes, the red cedar intrusion into cross timber habitat have been documented for many years,
especially when we transition from one ecosystem to the other.
Right now, the regulations does not establish eradication of that species, as a part of
the management.
So we will, unfortunately, we will have to rely on the cross timber to be able to, you
know, stay where it is.
We have provisions in the code that allows the property owner or the developer to actually
do and remove some of invasive species, or to trim the canopy to allow for the improvement
of the health and success of the cross timber habitat.
If that's something that the developer or property owner would like to pursue, those
are permitted uses and they will be able to do it right.
So there's nothing that we can interject there to maintain that as cross timbers habitat
other than okay, you preserve it and that's it.
Correct.
If you want to trim or to remove invasive species, you are allowed to do it.
But there is not a mandate to actually go and remove any red cedars.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Deborah, let me ask you this, it points out the assessment found that some of the upland
habitat no longer met the criteria and were removed.
You talked about that little finger.
I think it was mentioned that it was on one of the exhibits here, Exhibit 4, explains
how the area depicted as non-contiguous upland, because what criteria did it not meet?
When they actually go to the site and GPS the boundaries of the upland habitat, it was
found to be a gap, a physical gap between the area that met the criteria of upland habitat.
Because of that gap, that small tree area was removed.
However, after further field assessment, we gained pretty much 10 acres of upland habitat
to the south.
But we're losing that little finger, right?
Correct.
Okay.
The gap, what created the gap?
Was it manmade or natural?
It could be manmade.
Many of our upland habitat is a second generation forest, so it could have been removed by previous
activities on site.
So we don't have a lot of history of how that area was actually impacted.
But upon field verification, we found the gap.
And one of the conditions to define an upland habitat is to maintain that continuity between
one tree area to the other.
And I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it seems like this gap, if it was manmade
or whatever, in time, I mean, how big is the gap?
How wide is it?
It doesn't look that big.
Well, I think that when you -- the green polygon on top of it doesn't allow you to clearly
see it.
Right.
But I think that if you see -- I don't have my pointer yet.
My pointer is showing.
Okay.
So right here, that's a pond, right here.
So pretty much -- I don't know the specific distance between the edge of what we still
consider upland habitat and this area.
But yeah, there was a physical break into it.
Okay.
So that's an area where they're going to be building houses, and it just seems convenient
that that was -- has that break in it, yet it seems like over time, you know, as growth
goes, that gap could disappear, too.
Correct.
So we're looking at this like a snapshot.
Correct.
There's a gap now, so we can discount it as a result of that?
Yes.
That's why we are -- we recommend to do the field assessment right before development happens
and not a year ahead because we want to have the most current conditions upon development.
So if development is happening right now or in the next six months or so, I think that
we have to honor whatever existing conditions are.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Sanchez?
I just wanted to mention, from my experience working as a biologist on the grasslands,
in looking at upland habitat, upland habitat is not necessarily contiguous -- you're not
going to find the trees contiguous through the whole area.
Soils make a big difference, and so you're going to find a lot of areas where even though
the trees adjacent -- there may be an opening, but adjacent to that, you have trees, and
you'll have areas that are just open and nothing will grow there, and it's basically based
on the soil type.
So you may have -- even though you see trees growing adjacent to that and you have this
area there, the soil type makes a difference too.
You're correct.
The cross timber habitat is almost a combination of a forest with a savanna.
So therefore, there are some gaps throughout, but in this case, unfortunately, that gap
is in the outer edge.
For example, if this area were to be -- if there were other upland habitat right here,
then I will say, well, that gap may be part of that typical gaps that we find, but unfortunately,
I don't have any -- we don't find any continuity with other upland habitats probably on the
south side.
So we look into it.
We try to preserve as much upland habitat as possible.
We were happy to be able to find out that our map were underestimated, the total amount
of the upland habitat, and we were able to increase it to 20.6 of total upland habitat
on the side.
So even though we may have messed that polygon right there, I think that we gained substantial
upland habitat to this area right here, which is now subject to ESA preservation.
Thanks, Deborah.
So to continue the presentation, much of the riparian buffer also meets the criteria of
the upland habitat, and that's because of the way that this waterway has been cut through
some of what was that upland habitat before, and thus creates an overlap in the habitats.
The proposed encroachment that we bring to you today, and that's the reason for the alternative
ESA plan is for the applicant is proposing to build a roadway improvement to connect
the northern and southern tracks, which you have the preliminary platform so you can get
a feel for what they're proposing to develop, and the installation of the utilities that
would go along with that roadway.
They would be removing a 100-foot segment along the 100-foot width of that riparian
buffer equating to 10,000 square feet.
It's notable that the understory is dominantly Chinese privet at this time.
About 75 to 100 percent of that area is Chinese privet understory, and then there's 72 trees
that are located within that 10,000 square feet, and I've given you a summary of those
trees here.
For this deviation from the ESA regulations, there is criteria for approval for an alternative
ESA plan, and the mitigation analysis for in-kind replacement of the functions offered
by the ESA to be removed is what must be met, and that's in subchapter 17 of the Denton
Development Code, and to summarize it, the applicant must provide some type of mitigation
for what they are removing, and I've tried to provide you some summary of what those
mitigation requirements are.
The first mitigation strategy that the applicant is proposing is to preserve cross timbers,
upland habitat, and tree canopy beyond the minimum City of Denton requirements.
The upland habitat proposal is, or the requirement, is 10.25 acres, and they are proposing to
preserve 11.5 acres, and the tree canopy requirements per preservation is 6.16 acres
and they are proposing 11.7 acres.
Yes.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
We're losing, with this, I realize that what they're leaving is above the minimum, but
we're losing about nine acres, too, so they don't have to mitigate any of that?
No, because the, by rights, they can remove 50%, up to 50% of the upland habitat.
Okay.
Nice.
Thank you.
The second mitigation strategy that they are offering is to remove the Chinese privet and
calorie, there's a few calorie pear trees also within that riparian buffer, and both
of these are highly invasive species, and they will be removing those Chinese privet
and calorie pear using mechanical and chemical removal methods, and the strategy will improve
the chances for a thriving native and adaptive understory.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Deborah may need your help.
This was my email to you, the method they're going to use, I understand the mechanical
is probably the best method to get rid of, but they're going to come in with a herbicide
to do the rest, so my question was, what is that herbicide, and how do we assure that
it doesn't get into the system?
So for now, the applicant has proposed to use, it's okay, for now the applicant has
proposed to defer that to the landscaping company that they hired to determine that
information.
Okay.
But does the city have standards of what they can and can't use, I mean, I'm concerned
about the glyphosate that's typically used in situation, that's a chemical in roundup
that creates problems.
Now, according to the EPA, if it's applied properly, there's not a lot of problem, no
need to be concerned, but independent studies are not as amenable to that perception as
the EPA is.
So how do we, there was a, part of it says they're going to do a report each year for
three years.
Now, that'll be the developer that does that, and they'll report each year to the city,
is that correct?
Correct.
Okay.
And will they, part of that report, monitor the herbicide they use to make sure that it's
been applied properly, it's not spreading, it's not getting into the ecosystem in any
way?
So at this time, our reporting wouldn't include monitoring specifically for the application
of a pesticide, because that's not a typical procedure.
And this concern with the glyphosate is understandable, but at this time, because the federal government
hasn't imposed regulations on this, and the city doesn't have the authority either to
impose regulations on it.
I would add to that.
I would like to add that at this point, what the applicant is trying to accomplish here
is just to use different approaches to give a better head start to the planting of native
species, okay?
That's what we're doing.
Most of the time, this type of, the removal of Chinese privet, the best way to do it is
by burning.
However, this is an organized area, so that option is not on the table.
So the other options available are mechanical or chemical.
But they're plus replanting native species after they remove those invasive.
What they're doing is just to see which combination of methods will give the better chance.
The three-year review of field assessment that they have to provide to us, I think that
will give us the chance to look at how the mechanical is doing and performing.
And if that is not doing well, then at least to consider.
The applicant have show the desire and the willingness to bring all those selection to
us and that way we have a conversation.
Just keep in mind that all type of herbicide needs to be applied by a licensed applicator,
which they have to abide by what the manufacturer have determined to be the right way to do
it, okay?
Any conditions that allows for what is called drift, which is actually the chemical relieving
the site, they need to consider that before applying the chemical.
So I think that the applicant is aware and willing to do that.
We don't have standards to able to determine, but I just wanted to bring to your attention
that herbicides also comes what is called in aquatic grade, okay?
And this being a repair and buffer subject to flooding conditions and so on, that will
be an option that the applicant has to instead of the regular roundup, which is for more
terrestrial application, they can actually go the aquatic version of it.
What the aquatic version is, they have different type of surfactants that will make the chemical
less available to the aquatic organism.
So those options are available to the applicant at this point, and we will be looking into
that closely when they are, if they choose to go chemical application to do that.
Will these reports be available to the public on the city's website?
Well, all information on the public website, most of the time the development applications
have a case number and people can actually log in and be able to pull that information.
However, any type of information submitted to the city is subject to open record request.
So if somebody is interested to actually get that information, that will be made available.
Okay.
One last thing.
The area that they're going to go in and remove the invasive plant, now they're talking just
about that 10,000 square feet, are they going to do the whole repair and buffer, that whole
thing?
Yes.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you, Deborah.
Commissioner Sanchos.
Yes.
When you're talking about the 100 foot buffer, is that from the center, 100 foot, or are
you saying 50 on either side?
It's 50 on each side.
50 on each side.
Okay.
The other strategy for this is that they will be installing temporary erosion control measures.
During the removal of that Chinese privet, there will be some disturbances.
They will have a rock check dam at the crossing that they're proposing, and they will be using
straw waddles or other mitigation type strategies to keep erosion from occurring along that
riparian buffer as it's exposed after they remove those invasive species.
The last mitigation strategy is to revegetate the area of the calorie pair and Chinese privet
that they have removed with a mix of native and adaptive trees and shrubs, and a riparian
restoration seed mix that will provide a protective ground cover.
As Deborah has already touched on, there will be a long-term maintenance and monitoring
program.
For three years, they will be monitoring the area, and the developer will be replacing
any dead material, and they will be repairing any eroded land and removing any trash found
in the area, and producing the annual report to environmental services.
After that three-year period, there will be a final acceptance of this alternative ESA
plan, and environmental services will be inspecting for conformance and issuing that final acceptance.
Our recommendation is to approve the request with the following conditions, that the 11.5
acres of existing cross-timbers upland habitat and the 11.7 acres of the tree canopy be preserved,
the encroachment into the riparian buffer ESA will be limited to 10,000 square feet,
the invasive species within the Fletcher branch, tributary number four riparian buffer ESA,
specifically the Chinese privet and the calorie pair will be removed, the revegetation of
the area disturbed by invasive species, removal with native plants that are provided in table
three of the alternative ESA plan and ground cover seeding of riparian restoration mix
will commence prior to the first building permit, and annual reporting during the first
three years describing the cumulative mitigation work performed, and the survivability of the
plant shall be submitted to staff for review and inspection, and the plants installed as
part of the proposed native flora revegetation are to be installed and maintained by the current
property owner and developer for a period of three years following in the installation,
and any plants that are removed, destroyed, or die within that three-year period are required
to be replaced by the current property owner developer.
Christy has the applicant seen all of these recommendations?
Yes.
And they're fine with your suggestions?
I believe so.
Okay.
Yes.
Commissioner Sanchez?
You go back one.
Sure.
Well, you have your, and I guess I have a real heartache with, you know, with looking
at the area and looking at the condition and us putting this area aside and saying, okay,
we're maintaining upland habitat, but it's a very poor condition.
It seems to me, I mean, if we're talking about cross timbers upland habitat, the whole
purpose of putting it aside is to maintain it.
But if we're going to lose it over time, what's the purpose?
And to me, it's either, it's almost like taking land from somebody and saying, okay, we wanted
to preserve it for this reason, but it's not going to happen 10 years, 15 years from
now, it's going to be a mess.
And there's no long-term vision as to maintaining that cross timbers habitat.
Because it's all cross timbers habitat.
It just happens that there's some open areas.
That's what cross timbers habitat is.
When we say cross timbers habitat, the whole area is cross timbers habitat, not just where
there's trees.
Okay.
So I have a real heartache with this not maintaining it long-term.
Conservation does not necessarily mean it's going to be there 10 years from now.
Because habitat changes.
And it has, I mean, nature in itself created this habitat.
Like she said, fire was an integral part of it.
And if we don't do nothing with it, the cedars are going to encroach there, and pretty soon
you're going to have a fire problem in there.
Because cedar is very, you know, if there's a fire, cedar is going to take off.
And so if you did have a fire, then the trees there would be probably destroyed, would be
burned.
Because cedar burns very hot.
I mean, we've seen it as part of our management on the cross, on the LBJ grasslands.
So and you see this also at Ray Roberts.
They burn on an yearly basis to maintain that habitat.
We're saying we're preserving it, but we're not doing anything long-term.
I guess I'm just saying this.
We need to look at it long-term and not just say, this is what we're doing.
Because I think it would be a very educational piece of property there if we went in there
and did, you know, you can do it with mechanical means and also with herbicides.
And long-term, it would be an area where people could go and see and say, this is what cross-timbers
habitat, this is what it used to look like, rather than, you know, a mess.
That's my two cents.
Commissioner Beck?
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Commissioner Sanchez, in all due respect, I'm curious, and not to diminish your expertise
in this area, but you keep referring to this area as poor, the environmental services is
rated at fair.
So I'm wondering where this different definition is coming from.
Being fair, it seems, in my opinion, means if we maintain it properly, it could develop
into more than fair.
Maybe good.
We're going to go in.
We're going to cut back the invasive species.
We're going to do some pruning and cleaning up.
Commissioner Beck, I think Christy is going to --
I'm sorry to correct you on that, but the fairness rating was for the riparian buffer
alone.
Yeah.
And the upland habitat, we do not have a rating at this time.
Okay.
So --
But Commissioner Sanchez is rating it as poor.
So is that a fair assessment?
There is no rating.
Environmental services does not have a rating for upland habitat at this time.
Okay.
So I guess the point I'm trying to make, and again, no offense, Commissioner Sanchez, but
since there is no rating on it, calling it poor is kind of throwing a monkey wrench into
this whole thing.
It may -- if it's poor, what's that rating based on?
Okay.
And I'm going to say we're going to stay on task with this, and does anyone have any more
questions for the presentation?
And I think Ron has a few more items of information to provide to you.
So I'll turn it back over to Ron.
Okay.
Thanks, Christy.
Just a couple more slides just to wrap up this presentation.
I just want to inform the Commission that there were two neighborhood meetings held,
one in December and one just recently last week.
You should have a copy of a summary report of the second meeting that I passed out this
afternoon.
So first meeting summary is including your packet.
Notifications were sent out because this is a public hearing, and we received one in opposition,
and that response is also included or passed out this afternoon.
That opposition just represents one percent, so -- and it's shown across Ryan in this general
area here where it's shown in red.
And that's it.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions.
Senator Beck.
Thank you, Dr. Chair.
It was mentioned that there was going to be a walkway from this developed area to the
part next to it.
I don't see it on the -- Yeah, that is part of the future development,
and that will be part of any development.
Preliminary plat is shown.
We'll come back with the final plat to the Commission, and you'll see that connection.
Okay.
And we'll see it then.
Yes.
Good.
And then we're talking about like a sidewalk.
Right.
There's connection between the two subdivisions to the east.
Great.
Thanks.
Yes, Mr. Sanchez.
Okay.
Commissioner Sanchez.
As I was reading through this, and I'm not sure if I got that right, what's that, Hollister?
Hollister?
Hollister, yes.
Yeah.
That's going to be opened up, right, or is it going to be --
It's not going to open up.
It's going to close where it is, and it's going to create more of an open area, an open
space, with pedestrian access between the two subdivisions.
Okay.
Because I drove out there, and there's a sign that says, "This is going to be opened once
the area is developed."
Sorry.
Okay.
And my question is, long-term, it was planned to open it and bring some connectivity to
the different, what do you call it, little enclaves or little subdivisions that are coming
up.
And it seems like now we're changing our mind, and everybody -- you know, instead of -- you're
going to have to either go north or south to move out of there, I guess, rather than
giving you some connectivity to the other subdivision or the other phases and maybe
move.
It just seems like we create these little enclaves and we give them two exits, but yet if there's
a --
Right here.
Yeah.
It seems like there should be some connectivity there so that we don't -- we stop creating
these little enclaves.
I think we may be potentially getting into an open meetings issue because connectivity
isn't part of the matter that's placed on the agenda for today.
This is more of a platting issue, and as far as policy is concerned, the policy is properly
addressed to the city council.
The post-it matter on the agenda is to consider the environmentally sensitive area only and
not to consider any future development.
Commissioner, just really quickly, and I know we're kind of going off, but it was presented
during the neighborhood meetings -- yes, you're correct, that street was to provide connectivity
-- however, there is two entrances or two accesses that meet the fire requirements as
well as the engineer requirements.
I guess I'm just basing it on reading the information here, and it talks about that
was closed, but when I went up there, it says that was a long-term decision, I guess, when
all that was being planned, and why all of a sudden you plan something five, ten years
back, and all of a sudden, okay, we're not going to do it, and there should be some reasoning
why we're changing it and not just we're going to close it because maybe somebody doesn't
like traffic through there.
There should be -- you know, one of the big issues we have is roads and/or people --
Okay, Commissioner Sanchez, we're getting off topic again.
I think the applicant will be there tonight, and maybe it's a -- I know it came from the
neighborhood meeting that's in our backup, that discussion.
And so, we can address it at the meeting.
I think at this time, we're going to break for food before we head to our final item,
so I will take a recess at 617.
Welcome back to the City of Dutton planning and zoning meeting on February 6, continuing
our work session.
I call us back to order at 621, and Ron is going to present our final agenda item.
Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission.
I'm going to try to be as quickly as possible, but I want to cover some of the highlights
of this important code amendment.
As you all know, we are discussing -- we have been discussing the student -- I'm sorry,
not student, but rather SRO, single room occupancy, also referred to as collegiate housing.
The purpose for this item, or this item for your consideration today, is to determine
the classification of this type of development.
Is it multifamily, or is it considered collegiate housing, also referred to as dormitory?
So we've got a lot of different uses that we can go with, and then also talk about if
it is a separate use, how do we locate them, where do we locate them, and how do we approve
them for new developments?
So those are the items that we want to get from the commission as far as recommendations
moving forward.
Excuse me.
We hope to take this to City Council for their consideration, of course, after your recommendation.
Staff is proposing if, again, if this is a separate use, to use the term dormitory.
We currently have this use in our development code.
We currently have a definition, but in order to meet this development type, we are proposing
an amendment to that definition, and that definition here is shown here and is going
to be defined, and I'll read it for the record, a structure with three or more dwelling units
in which individual bedrooms are individually rented for periods in excess of 30 days and
in which each bedroom lacks the exclusive use of a full kitchen.
And again, that is what we're trying to describe in this floor plan.
Commissioner Sanchez?
Can you go back to your definition of dormitories?
I guess I'm old school, so when I think of dormitories, I think of universities, okay?
That's what they have.
And when you use that term, especially in the context of universities or colleges, I
think most parents think of a dormitory as a place where there's some supervision.
When you use this term dormitory in this other context, there's no supervision, and I think
people -- this is an older definition, at least it is for me, older definition, and
I think when you're dealing with students, there should be a different name for dormitories,
universities or colleges, and the new, what we're talking, SROs, and have those.
That's a totally different animal, I think.
It's not multi-family, but it's not -- I don't think it's a dormitory.
So the term dormitory is --
I don't think it fits, especially when parents -- I'm going to put my son in a dormitory.
They usually think there's supervision here, there's this, as opposed to, like I said,
SROs are a totally different animal, okay?
I could try to address some of that.
I actually recommended that they use dormitory, and part of the reason for it is that it's
not just students that we're talking about.
We're talking about situations where you have a group of people that are living in a common
area with some shared facilities, and you have a situation like that.
You know, the yuppies in the 1980s liked having that kind of a lifestyle.
They didn't particularly want to cook, they didn't particularly want to keep house, they
didn't want to mow grass, and sort of having a situation where they could live in an urban
environment is attractive to them, and there's nothing that -- at least in this definition,
and part of the reason why we have the definition is to explain exactly what we mean here, even
if it's different from what you typically might use.
The other thing is that, as far as supervision is concerned, there are lots of private dormitories
that are not under the control of the university at UNT and other universities, and so for
that reason, dormitories seem to express this sort of combined living arrangement.
Is it the only way to express it?
No, not at all, but it's not intended to apply only to students.
And I think that's probably what we're going to get hung up, is a lot of people think like
what Commissioner Sanchez brought up, which is dormitory means something at a college
or university.
We are getting short on time.
Why don't we let you finish your presentation, and we're going to end up having to have discussion,
I think, in the meeting.
Okay.
So I'm going to go ahead and jump through the background and really get to the meat of
the subject matter, and so again, the discussion is, is this a separate use?
If it is a separate use, where would they be located as far as a zoning district, and
what type of approval would they be required?
Is it an SUP or is it by right?
And then we've got also some other considerations to consider when we look at dormitories or
whatever we decide to call this.
Currently dormitory, as I said earlier, is already in the DEN Development Code.
It is permitted in these zoning districts by SUP or permitted by right.
Staff is recommending that the dormitory be permitted with a new definition as shown here
with SUPs in the NRMU, I'm sorry, NRMU-12, NRMU-DR-1 be permitted in the DR-2 and then
with a limitation in the DCN and DCG, and that limitation is that if that proposed dormitory
is above 45 feet, they would be required to obtain a specific use permit.
Now I want to also tell you that council has discussed this item and we presented to them
during a work session, two work sessions to be specific, and their recommendation or their
direction is that the dormitory is the use, is a separate use for multifamily and that
it should be permitted through an SUP in all of the zoning districts shown here.
Skip these.
That's really it.
So staff's recommendation, as you saw, is what you see here and then council has their
recommendation and what we're looking for the commission is to get your recommendation
for this item as well and we'll cover more during the public hearing.
Okay.
All right.
And with that, thank you, Ron, I'm going to go ahead and close our work session at 629
and we will reconvene in council chambers as soon as possible for the public meeting.
Thank you.
Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton Planning and Zoning Commission for Wednesday,
February 6, 2019.
I will call us with the quorum present, call us to order at 639 PM.
If you are able, please stand and recite the pledge to the U.S. and Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which
it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which
it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Okay.
Moving to our agenda.
Our first item of business is approval of the minutes from our meeting on January 23rd.
Commissioner Smith.
Move to approve.
Commissioner Preneta.
I second the motion.
We've got a first and a second to approve the minutes for January 23rd.
Let's take a vote.
That motion carries 6-0.
That moves us to the consent agenda.
Commissioner Smith.
Move to approve.
I give the motion to approve.
Commissioner Beck.
Second.
Okay.
Is there any discussion on the consent agenda?
We've got a first and a second to approve.
Okay.
Let's call for a vote on the board.
That will carry 6-0.
That moves us to our public hearings tonight.
Our public hearings, A, B, and C, have all been postponed to the February 20th planning
and zoning meeting.
That will take us to our item D. I will call up Shawn Jacobson for that presentation.
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the commission.
My name is Shawn Jacobson.
Tonight I'm presenting FR180018, which is a residential replat of lots 2R1 and 2R2,
the fire station number 3 addition.
As we discussed in work session, this is a little bit different than the plats we normally
see for a replat without vacation.
We're required to hold a public hearing, and because this is a residential replat, we are
required to notice within 200 feet and within the subdivision, which we have done.
This specific replat, the original plat shown here, the addition, we're looking at lot number
2, and the request is to split lot number 2 into 2R1 and 2R2.
This is located in the NR3 zoning district, and both lots meet the minimum lot size within
that zoning district.
Just a note, we did receive two letters in response.
Both were in support and within the 200-foot radius.
Staff recommends approval because this replat meets all the technical requirements.
With that, if you have any questions, I'll stand for them.
We do.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Thanks, Shawn.
Currently, there's no dwelling units on this lot, right?
There is a dwelling unit on one of them, yes, on 2R1.
Okay, and the intent for splitting this is to build another house on that?
That would certainly be something that the owner of that lot could do.
Okay.
That was an expresso in the way of doing it.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Any other questions for staff?
I don't see any.
Thank you, Shawn.
Thank you.
Is there any discussion or I can entertain a motion?
I did not open the public hearing.
Thank you, Jerry.
I will open the public hearing.
Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item?
Okay, seeing none, I will close the public hearing for this item and I can entertain
discussion or a motion.
Commissioner Smith.
Move to approve.
Commissioner Beck.
Second.
Okay, we have a first and a second to approve.
Any discussion?
Okay, let's call for a vote.
That motion carries 6-0.
That will move us to our item E and I will open the public hearing and invite Ron up
for presentation.
Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission.
This will be a tag team effort between myself and Christy Upton regarding this subject item.
This item for you for consideration is for an alternative ESA, environmental sensitive
area plan, to allow the development of crossing a stream buffer, again, to allow for a single
family subdivision, approximately 140 residential lots on 45 acres, generally located just south
of Ryan Road and approximately 600 feet just west of Roxbury Street.
As shown on this aerial here, it is just east of the Lakeside Park as well as the Good Samaritan
development as shown on this aerial.
With that, I'm going to ask Christy Upton to continue with the presentation.
Thank you, Ron.
To give you an overview of this plan, I'm going to start with a little bit of the history
of how this ESA came to be.
The ESA regulations were established with a map that provided locations of ESAs within
the city of Denton, and we confirm the presence of those ESAs through field assessments.
This field assessment was done in 2018 and identified two tributaries, an unnamed tributary
that is an ephemeral stream, and the riparian buffer around it is 100 feet in width.
It was rated in fair condition using the City of Denton Rapid Stream Assessment Tool.
The Fletcher branch, the one in blue and the one that we will be discussing today, is an
intermittent stream that bisects the northern part of the property.
It is also 100 foot width, riparian buffer, and was also rated in fair condition.
In addition to that, there was upland habitat that was identified.
This cross-timbers upland habitat during the original assessment using the original tools
that we had available to us had identified 10.9 acres of that habitat.
During the assessment, some of that upland habitat was found to no longer meet the criteria,
namely that it was isolated from the rest of the upland habitat, and thus the isolation
keeps it from continuing.
That lack of continuity is where we lose that designation of up to and over 10 acres of
the upland habitat in continuity.
The assessment found that other areas did meet the criteria and were added, so it increased
the overall habitat to 20.6 acres.
I also want to point out that much of the riparian buffer within both the Fletcher branch
and the unnamed tributary meet also the criteria of upland habitat creating an overlap in those
two habitats.
The proposed encroachment is a roadway improvement to connect both the northern and southern
tracks and the installation of utilities throughout that roadway.
The encroachment, in order for them to establish that roadway, would require that they remove
a 100-foot long segment of the riparian buffer, and again, it being 100 feet in width, that
means that they'll be removing 10,000 square feet of total area.
The understory of this riparian buffer right now is predominantly Chinese privet, an invasive
species, and when I say predominantly, it's up to 75 to 100% of the coverage of that 10,000
square feet is Chinese privet.
Then 72 trees will also be removed, and there's a summary here of the trees that will be removed.
The criteria for approval of this alternative ESA plan for the proposed deviation from the
ordinance in sub-chapter 17, it lists those criteria.
There's more information about this in your documents that were provided to you.
To summarize the criteria for approval, the applicant must provide an in-kind replacement
of the functions that were offered by that ESA before the removal.
The mitigation strategies that they have offered up includes the preservation of cross-timbers
upland habitat in the tree canopy beyond the minimum city of Denton requirements.
The upland habitat minimum preservation requirement is 10.25 acres.
That would be the 20 acres, a little over 20 acres, 50% preservation equating to 10.25.
The applicant is proposing to preserve 11.5 acres, or one and a quarter acres more than
what is required by ordinance.
The tree canopy preservation requires 6.16 acres, and they are proposing to preserve
11.7 acres of tree canopy.
The next mitigation strategy is to remove the Chinese privet and calorie pear that have
invaded that area.
They will be removing it along the 100-foot riparian buffer all the way along the Fletcher
branch, tributary number four.
They will be doing this using mechanical and chemical removal methods.
The strategy will improve chances for a thriving native and adaptive understory.
They will also be installing temporary erosion control measures.
Specifically, they've proposed to use a rock-check dam at the crossing, and erosion control waddles
and other measures to prevent erosion during that period of time when the soils are exposed
after they have removed that Chinese privet and calorie pear.
The last mitigation strategy specifically to this all-ESA plan is to revegetate the
area cleared of the invasive species.
They will be revegetating that with the native and adaptive trees and shrubs.
Then they will also be using a riparian restoration seed mix to provide a protective ground cover.
Long-term management and monitoring that they have offered up is to provide a three-year
monitoring period to ensure the survivability of the mitigation plan that they have put
forth.
The developer will replace any dead material that is found during that annual inspection,
and we'll be replacing that, and we'll repair any eroded land, and we'll remove trash, and
we'll provide an annual report, a summary of what they found and what they have done
to mitigate any of the problems that they have identified.
Then, after three years, environmental services will inspect the area for conformists with
the alternative ESA plan and will issue final acceptance based upon our findings of that
inspection.
Our recommendation is for approval of the request with following conditions.
The 11.5 acres of existing cross-timbers upland habitat and 11.7 acres of tree canopy be preserved.
The encroachment into the riparian buffer will be limited to 10,000 square feet.
The invasive species within the Fletcher branch tributary number four riparian buffer ESA,
and specifically Chinese privet and calorie pair, will be removed.
Re-vegetation of areas disturbed by the invasive species, removal with the native plants and
provided in table three of the alternative ESA plan, and ground cover seeding of riparian
restoration mix will commence prior to the first building permit, and a reporting during
the first three years describing the cumulative mitigation work performed and the survivability
of the plants shall be submitted to staff for review and inspection.
Plants installed as part of the proposed native floral re-vegetation are to be installed and
maintained by the current property owner developer for a period of three years following installation.
Any plants that are removed, destroyed, or die within that three year period are required
to be replaced by the current property owner developer.
And before I turn this back over to Ron, I'd be happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Kristi.
I don't see any right now.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'll hand it over to Ron to provide you some more information about the neighborhood meetings.
Thank you, Kristi.
I just want to point out that the applicant did hold two neighborhood meetings, one in
December and one just recently in January, and included in your backup as well as passed
out during this afternoon's work session as a summary of those neighborhood meetings.
Questions were sent out to property owners within 200 feet as well as residents within
500 feet of the subject site, as this is a public hearing.
As of this afternoon, staff has received only one response, and that was in opposition,
and that represents one percent, and that concludes our presentation.
And if there's any questions for staff, we'll be happy to answer them.
The applicant is here and has a presentation as well.
Thank you, Ron.
And Kristi, I think I do have a question for you from me.
In work session, we discussed briefly the chemical use, and I know Deborah had mentioned
something about a water-friendly version of a pesticide.
Is that something that they'd be required to use, or is that just a suggestion that
the city would give?
Because they would be using this within the riparian buffer, they would have to use an
aquatic-approved chemical.
That would be required.
Yes.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you.
Any other questions for staff?
Okay.
We do have some cards wishing to speak.
I'm going to call up the applicant, Thomas Fletcher.
Please state your name and address.
Good evening, commissioners.
My name is Thomas Fletcher, 5750 Genesis Court, Frisco, Texas, 75034.
I am the civil engineer for the applicant.
With me tonight is Ciara Gibbons.
She's our environmental scientist as well, so if there are questions that I am not able
to answer, then I've got her here with me as well.
I've got a quick PowerPoint presentation for you.
Really the request before you today is the alternate ESA plan, which would allow us to
cross the riparian stream buffer to access the southern portion of our track for development.
Really some side information, it's a 44.97-acre site.
It's currently zoned in R6, which allows for single-family development.
We're proposing 140 single-family lots.
Over that area, that's about a 3.1 density compared to the allowable use of six total.
Just to give you an idea of what we're proposing, it is a less dense development than what we
have the right by zoning to do.
The overall, because the preliminary plat is before you or was approved on the consent
agenda contingent upon the approval of the alternate ESA, the land plan has been established.
It has the open spaces, it has the street patterns, it has all that information that's
been reviewed by the city staff and found to be in conformance with as long as the alternate
ESA is approved.
The overall site has about 15.3 acres of open space.
That's about 35%, just under 35% open space for the entire development, so it does have
a significant amount of open space.
There is, as Christy has gone over, there's ESA in the form of riparian stream buffer
in upland habitat.
Here's an aerial image of the site.
To the north east of us is Teasley Trails, just directly north is Ridgemont.
To our east is Forest Meadows.
To our southeast is Lexington Park.
Directly to our west is Lake Forest Park and Good Samaritan Village, and you can see a
little further to the east is the Creekside development, and to the south is an undeveloped
track that's owned by Endeavour.
The ESA stream buffer is what we're asking for you to approve impacts to.
This shows the two stream buffers that are on the site.
The one in the northwest is the unnamed tributary.
The central one is Fletcher's Branch number four.
The proposed encroachment is a 100 foot by 100 foot area, 10,000 square feet.
The purpose of that encroachment is to build a residential street section to the south
so that we can have a contiguous development between the north and south portion of the
track.
It also gives us the ability to market this residential development off Ryan Road as a
contiguous neighborhood versus having residents or potential residents have to access it through
adjacent neighborhoods.
The reason or how we came up with 100 foot encroachment that we're requesting.
The city's standard residential section is 55 foot right of way.
DME requires an eight foot franchise utility easement in order to serve the development
with franchise utilities.
Because we are crossing a stream that has a large watershed, we will be utilizing box
culverts, multiple boxes.
Those will have concrete reinforced head walls.
Those are structurally designed on past projects that has been the city's position that they
want the structure itself outside the right of way so that it's not located up under the
right of way or under any of the improvements.
So it's just better for maintenance.
So when you take into account the roadway section, the franchise utility requirements,
the head walls for the drainage, and then rock riprap, typically when we have a drainage
structure because we're funneling the water through this drainage structure, we end up
having a lot of times a slight increase in velocity.
So we'll utilize rock riprap upstream and downstream to protect the banks so that we're
not getting erosion and undermining of that structure.
So that's really just to kind of give you a background on where that 100 feet came from.
That's how we derive the encroachment area.
So our application process, so we've been working on this track now for probably about
8 to 10 months.
So we first started out with our ESA assessment.
So our ESA assessment was project number ESA 18-0012, and that involved field assessment.
As Christie mentioned, there was a field assessment to go out there and determine what ESA was
present, where the limits were, so that we had a starting point or a basis for when we're
laying out the site, what we're going to have to preserve versus where we can impact.
So with the city standards, the upland habitat, you can impact up to 50%.
The riparian stream buffer, if you impact any portion of the riparian stream buffer,
it requires an alternate ESA plan.
Because the Fletcher's Branch tributary number 4 bisects the property, we need the ability
to impact that.
So we put together a plan, we met with the city, we determined that we are going to have
to do or request the alternate ESA plan.
So we started putting that plan together, we looked at the encroachments, we started
looking at mitigation measures.
It was kind of a collaborative process with the city.
We submitted our application, they worked with us on mitigation measures that we could
propose to kind of offset and mitigate for that impact.
As part of that process, we did submit our preliminary plat so that it could run concurrent
because it needs to follow the requirements or what we're requesting with the alternate
ESA plan.
So the city was able to review the preliminary plat and the alternate ESA plan concurrently
to make sure that those match up and are in alignment.
As part of the process, the city said, "Okay, we want to, as part of our citizen outreach
program, we want you to perform two neighborhood meetings."
So we set those meetings up, the first meeting was held on December 18th, the second meeting
was held on January 31st, and then we had a meeting with the city in between to discuss
some of the items that came up.
So really, in my presentation to you today, I'm going to talk to you about the ESA encroachment,
but I'm also going to talk to you about the neighborhood meetings and a lot of the concerns
or questions that came up in the neighborhood meetings and what we tried to do as the consultant
to help address and alleviate the questions and the concerns from the neighbors on this
proposed development.
So prior to the meeting, we sent out an invitation.
Within that invitation, it went to all the neighbors within 500 feet of the development.
We included a vicinity map for the site, we included the ESA riparian buffer, and then
we included two concept plans.
The concept plans showed, one, what we were allowed to do without any encroachments into
the ESA, and then what we would like to do as a developer.
The meeting was held at the Emily Fowler Central Library.
We had a sign-in sheet.
There were 26 people that signed in.
I do feel that everybody that attended probably didn't sign the sign-in sheet.
It felt like we probably had around 50 people total in attendance.
At the meeting, we put together an information sheet.
What is an ESA?
What types of ESAs are located on the site?
So we wanted it to be an educational experience about the ESA, and then we also put information
on there about our request to the residents.
I gave an informal presentation.
It was a Q&A.
There were lots of questions.
There was lots of back-and-forth discussion.
There were city staff present at the meeting that was engaged in the meeting as well.
At the residents' own discretion, we had sheets that they had the opportunity to sign, whether
or not they were in support or in opposition of our request.
We had two people sign in opposition, and we had 22 people sign in favor.
So the residents, primarily the residents in favor were Forest Meadows that's adjacent
to our east and had the potential to be impacted the most by our development.
So here are the two concept plans.
Exhibit C is what our preferred layout is, and this is what we shared with them at that
initial meeting.
Exhibit D is what we're allowed to do by right.
As you notice on Exhibit D, it has a cul-de-sac street on the north end, so the development,
the residential homes on the north would be bisected from the ones on the south.
So there's really not any continuity there.
The primary access from the southern portion of the development would either be through
Forest Meadow or Lexington Park, and it doesn't really create a new neighborhood feel by having
to go through an existing neighborhood to access the southern portion, which is important
to our builder.
We do have a home builder under contract for the lots.
It's Toll Brothers, and the connection through the riparian buffer is important to them in
order for them to effectively market and create a successful neighborhood here.
So we had our neighborhood meeting number two.
Prior to the second neighborhood meeting, we went and met with the city.
In the neighborhood meeting, the first neighborhood meeting, the primary concern was traffic.
It was Hollister Drive.
It was the existing cut-through traffic through Forest Meadows and Lexington Park.
I let the citizens know that the city has done some updates to their standards.
The new standards, they were developed under the old standards, which was 50-foot right
of way, 28-foot back-to-back streets.
Our developments under the new standards, 55-foot right of way, 31 or 33-foot back-to-back
streets, depending on the curb type that's used.
We went through some of those factors.
One of the biggest things that they requested is that they would like to see Hollister Lane
not extended through our development.
They already have a lot of cut-through traffic.
They felt like the access should be primarily off Ryan Road and Creekdale.
Ryan Road is a secondary arterial.
That is, the city's already in the process of looking at and improving it.
Creekdale Road is a collector.
It's a 37-foot back-to-back street.
The existing homes on Creekdale do not driveway off of Creekdale.
They're served by alleys, so you don't have all the traffic in those homes that would
back into Creekdale because they're served from the backside.
We did meet with the city.
The city was in agreement with access to Ryan Road and access to Creekdale.
It would meet the fire department's remote access requirement.
It's getting the residential drivers onto the collector and the arterial sooner, which
is what you want, versus traffic accumulating on the residential streets, which have less
capacity to serve.
If you look on the left, exhibit C, we updated that.
One of the things that was important in that meeting was that with removing that connection,
we still wanted to provide pedestrian connectivity, even though that these are separate subdivisions.
We've got Lake Forest Park to our west, which is an asset of the city in this area.
We want to make sure that we create an opportunity for the residents located around that to utilize
the sidewalk and trail system to access the park.
We don't want to create a situation where the residents from Lexington Park or Forest
Meadows would have to get in their car to drive over to Lake Forest.
There's sidewalks.
There's trails.
They can access it through the development.
This is the plan that we have before you with the preliminary plat and preliminary engineering.
It does show the trail access.
With this, we agreed that we would remove the stub.
Right now, if you drive to the end of Hollister Lane, it says future extension.
The city and we agreed that we didn't want that to look like it was going to be kind
of an unfinished or incomplete project.
What we agreed to do is that we would remove, and we have that shown in our preliminary
engineering that's part of the preliminary plat, that we would remove that end portion
of the street.
I did want to go over that with you just because that was one of the biggest concerns from
the residents, and this is what we did as far as meeting with the city to access and
address it.
Getting back to the ESA, the impacts and mitigation, Christy's kind of gone over that with you.
We've got a total stream buffer impact of 0.2 acres.
There's 3.4 acres of riparian stream buffer, so our request is to impact 6% of that.
Our mitigation measures are removing of the invasive species, the Chinese privet, the
calorie pear.
It's replanting with native material.
It's replanting with a seed mix.
It's putting erosion control measures in place while we're doing this work for bank stabilization.
It's preserving upland habitat and tree canopy that is above and beyond the minimum requirements.
Then it's doing the three-year inspection, maintenance, and reporting period.
Really kind of a summary through this, we're requesting this approval so that we can create
a contiguous neighborhood, so that we can create a neighborhood feel.
It would provide view corridors of the creek.
When we do the creek crossing, it kind of engages the future residents in that upland
habitat into that open space.
It provides pedestrian access from forest meadows through this development.
It would also provide pedestrian access for Lexington Park across Creekdale and through
the development.
Then it eliminates the concerns with traffic with the connection of Hollister because without
the approval of this, the only plan we could move forward without would be the other option
that you've seen before you as well.
With that, I would be happy to answer any questions.
- Thank you, Mr. Fletcher.
We do have questions.
Commissioner Perneto.
- Thank you.
I just wanted to clarify, and I don't know if this would be you or Christy that would
clarify this.
We discussed the removal of the invasive species either through mechanical or chemical means.
Vice Chair a second ago mentioned the aquatic-based herbicides.
I don't see that in the recommendation, so we make our vote.
Is that part of our stipulation, and can we stipulate that that would be the method used
for chemical?
- I guess I'd have to defer to staff.
- As a representative of the applicant, I would say that we're acceptable.
If you want to put that in your recommendation so that it's clear, then we're acceptable
to that being added to the recommendation.
- All right, thank you very much.
- Commissioner Beck.
- Thank you, Vice Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Fletcher.
Good seeing you again.
I think the only thing ... I think it's clear, pretty clear to me the 100-foot that you need.
You've got 55-foot of right-of-way that you need, 8-foot for DME, and then the rest of
it is to build up some barriers to prevent erosion down the road.
Is that right?
Am I saying that right?
- Well, so when you do a box culvert, you have a structural headwall, and your structural
headwall has a footing.
The footing is usually much wider.
If you see the concrete portion of the headwall up top, generally that's probably going to
be 8 to 10 inches wide, but where that goes down and goes underground, generally that's
probably going to be 6 to 12 feet wide, depending on the overall height of the headwall.
We will have that headwall, the protrusion for the footing, and then we will put rock
riprap in the stream to protect that from erosion, because what you don't want is you
get turbulence and velocity, and you start getting erosion that starts eating out around
the structure, and it creates a maintenance issue for the city.
So the 55, the 8, we assumed, I think, 12 feet for the headwalls, and then generally
the rock riprap is usually a minimum of 10 foot in width.
That all adds up to around 95, but you have to be able to get in there with the equipment
and the manpower to make the installation, so that's where we came up with the 100 foot.
- Great.
Got you.
- I do have a question, I think I probably would like to have Ms. Givens come up and
talk about the removal process a little bit.
I think she was in the work session, I'd just like to have her allay my concerns about any
herbicide they might use.
- Okay.
- And one other question I'll have that I think she's probably better suited to answer
too.
- If you give a name and address.
- Sierra Givens, 13455 Noel Road.
- Okay.
You were in the workshop, okay.
Could you allay my concerns about the herbicide that might be used?
I'm assuming that there probably will be a herbicide used, is that a fair assessment?
- Most potentially, we're going to set out bids for the contractors who do this often,
and so we're going to rely on them to give us proposals of what they think is best to
do a successful removal of the invasive species.
- Okay, but if they use a chemical and it's glyphosate, which again seems to be the chemical
of choice to help remove some of this.
- Right.
We would still have a say in what they use, and so we would definitely work with the city,
work with their expertise, and just kind of put it together to what we think is best to
be successful, but also do save practices.
- Okay.
I mentioned in the work session too that would this information on this chemical be included
in the annual report?
When you do your annual report, would you be assessing the chemical if it is used, and
any problems with it as far as assimilating into the environment, the ecosystem?
- In the annual report, we would write if that is the chosen method.
The city would already be aware of that, but it would go into the report of what the method
was, when it was applied, what the method was used to apply it, who the contractor was,
all that information.
- So it'd be pretty thorough, and I guess I think through the Freedom of Information
Act, anybody could access that, and I think that was the only way we were going to get
to it.
Okay.
The only other question concerning Avenue, you may not be able to, and I realize this
may be a reach, but in your narrative, you mentioned that no increase in 100-year peak
flows are anticipated downstream of the subject property.
What's this based on?
- The reason I raise this is because we know now that extreme climate conditions are kind
of throwing these old models out.
So when you took this into consideration, did you consider current conditions, extreme
weather conditions?
- We did.
We did.
So we've done a flood study.
- Okay.
- The flood study has been submitted to the city, and it was in process of review.
So our flood study follows the City of Denton's code requirements for flood studies as far
as delineation of the drainage basin.
Most of this drainage basin is a developed basin.
So when we look at the contributing area, we go through and look at, okay, when we have
a rain event, what area contributes to this point?
Is that an undeveloped basin?
Is it a developed basin?
If it's developed, what type of development, is it commercial, is it residential?
That all impacts the runoff rates.
Are there detention ponds in the basin?
There are a couple of developments that do have detention ponds in the basin, so that
all gets factored in.
So when we say that we're not gonna increase, we've already done the study to show that
as part of our final platen construction plans, the city will confirm final design that it
does in fact meet the flood study and does not increase runoff downstream.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
I guess what I'm asking is, is part of this based on rates of rainfall historically?
Or are we looking at something a little bit different that suits what we're actually seeing
today with heavier rainfalls?
Is that taken into consideration?
The current rainfall requirements in the code is what's taken into consideration.
The code says that we have to look at certain rainfall events, whether it's the two, the
five, the ten.
We have to analyze each rainfall event and make sure that in each case, because you can
have a situation where you do development and you may be increasing runoff in one of
the rain events, but not necessarily another one of the rain events, but we have to look
at each one of those individually because you don't want to increase flows, but you
don't want to also increase velocity, which could create erosion problems.
Maybe the 100 year, there's not an issue, but in the 25, you've increased velocities
and erosion downstream, which creates an issue.
We have.
We're following the city's code.
We look at the different storm events that are required, and we model the basin upstream
and downstream of our site so that we've got an accurate model and picture of what is occurring
within the basin.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you, Mr. Fletcher.
Commissioner Sanchez.
Looking at force metal, they have a bridge as you go into that subdivision.
Is that also crossing Fletcher?
That is.
I'm not sure how far.
It's the same tributary.
It's the same tributary, right?
I don't know if the usually a lot of times on some of the tributaries, once they get
to a certain point in the basin, they become unnamed, but that would be Fletcher's Branch
tributary number four at that culvert crossing just south of Ryan Road at the entry into
force meadows.
Correct?
Yeah.
Right.
I would guess my answer was that it's already been crossed before, you know, along right
there.
Correct.
And Duffy's Way crosses it as well for the access to the park.
Okay.
I don't see any other questions.
Thank you, Mr. Fletcher.
Thank you.
Okay.
I do have other cards to speak.
Carol Ackerman, please state your name and address and you'll have four minutes.
I'm the President of Force Meadows Homeowners Association and we'd like to present 132 signatures
in favor of this proposal and also that-
Can you state your name and address for me first, please?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Carol Ackerman, 1913 Knob Hill Court, Denton, Texas.
Thank you very much.
Carry on.
Okay.
Anyway, we'd like to present these to the commission.
We are in favor of them crossing the stream and the entrance off Ryan Road due to safety
issues in our community.
Thank you.
The next card I have is Joe Kratz.
If you'll state your name and address for the record, you'll have four minutes to speak.
My name is Joe, last name Kratz, address is 4109 Roxbury Street, R-O-X-B-U-R-Y Street.
Thank you.
I work with Carol.
I'm a resident of Force Meadows.
Naturally, we would like to see the area remain undeveloped, but we know that's not practical.
But the proposed change to encroach the 6% of Wetland to us seems preferred to changing
the character of Hollister and the surrounding roadways of Hilawaya and Roxbury.
I don't know if the gentleman with the engineering firm could pull up the map and I could make
references that would be maybe more meaningful.
But the signatures that Carol just presented to you are signatures that I helped gather,
and it represents darn near every resident on the affected roadways of Hollister, Roxbury.
In fact, there's only about six addresses on Roxbury that did not weigh in with the
signature, and mostly because they just weren't home when we knocked on their door.
So they're pretty motivated to the proposed change simply because of, okay, I don't know
if you can see my mouse, but Ryan heads up to Teasley Road, and that light short cycles,
and the traffic on Teasley is severely backed up at peak time, and that's morning and evening.
What that does, along with Robinson and Teasley and another road, another intersection, I
had it in my notes, but the surrounding light short cycle, and so what that encourages traffic
to do is to cut down Roxbury Street and Hillalaya.
So we already are suffering from the increased development in the area, the load being heavy
on the roads, and with the short cycling lights at Robinson Road and Teasley and Ryan, and
I think it's Wheeler Ridge, because those lights short cycle, people will use our neighborhood
already to cut through.
So when we see the additional Hollister as an additional source of traffic into our neighborhood,
I think that's what motivated the residents to really speak up and endorse the change.
So that's really where, having knocked on doors and spoken to residents, Roxbury is
a very long road, and for that, people can work up a pretty good head of steam and get
above 30 miles an hour in a residential road.
So Hollister, the residents there, and Hillalaya, and I forget the, I'm going to use my mouse.
What's that road?
Hillalaya.
Well, Hillalaya, but the other one behind, the one that's, anyways, the road that comes,
this is Hollister, if you can see my mouse, and then you go behind it, that road, yeah,
the character of those roads would change to increase traffic and increase a change
in the quality of life, noise, increased car exhaust, and so we would ask council to consider
this being in favor of this change to keep Hollister from going through, give them their
encroachment of the wetlands, to give them their bridge so they can connect up.
The alternative to that, for us, we would like to see Duffy's Way, which is a road exclusively
servicing the dog park, to be changed to provide access to their development from the west
side and not the east side with Hollister.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next person to speak is Judy Reel.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Judy Reel, 1424 Monte Cristo Court.
Thank you.
I did in Texas, 76210.
I live in the Ridgemont Adrition, north of their new front door.
So we are within the 200-foot area of the property, and so we are one of the residents
in opposition.
Our main reason for that is we're directly across the street from where they're going
to enter that street.
Already we experience large water pooling coming down through the neighborhood, and
the water flow in that area.
We're very concerned about the disruption that's going to happen there.
The current infrastructure there on certain downpours is inadequate.
I live on the corner.
All that water rushes by me.
I have a number of easements underneath my property to support these tributaries and
the feeding of water through that area to get it down there and into where it needs
to be.
So it's one of those things that are first concerned.
My neighbors here don't want the traffic routed through them.
I can tell you I don't want the traffic increase on Ryan Road.
We are in favor of leaving the easement.
Not doing the easement, leaving the ESA and keeping the water natural, mainly because
it splits the traffic.
At least all of us can endure the increase a little more instead of dumping it all on
Ryan Road and their large marketing effort that's going to be to sell the neighborhood
and all the increased traffic that's going to be there.
It's hard enough to get out of my neighborhood in the morning just to get out and on to Ryan
Road.
When we talked with the developer who happened to be at one of the meetings that we were
at, even he recognized Ryan Road is a problem for the city.
It needs to grow.
You guys know it.
It's been on the books for years that it was going to grow.
It still hasn't been grown since we've been there.
Been there four years.
The traffic noise increase on Ryan Road has been a problem for us living in the house,
literally.
And between Good Samaritan, sending the fire trucks down every morning and the amount of
traffic that goes through that intersection, it's really quite busy.
And to add yet another major property entrance right into that intersection is of concern
to us.
Of course, we love our trees and the wild flask.
I swear one summer we ran the possum relocation plan out of our home for quite a number of
wildlife that came to visit our property.
We would like to recommend that they consider a light there if we're going to really go
forward with the ESA approval, then we need to look at not only the water situation, but
also the traffic there and so forth in the increase.
So while I know I'm in the minority here, I did attend the meetings and our neighborhood
is concerned.
We don't have a homeowners association per se to go rally around and garner up a bunch
of signatures, but the neighborhood is concerned about it and we just finished with another
new development right down the road and now we're going to plop another one right next
door across the street, so that's our main concern.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
And I'm going to have Richard speak just a minute about Ryan Road, just because I know
yes, it has been a problem and we've brought it up as a commission and city council has
as well and it has gotten traction and moved up and I'm going to let him speak.
>> Just to give a brief update, this actually was discussed, I think, even with the last
development down the road that was recently approved.
What the city did is they undertook two different studies, one along Sherman, one and that one
has recently been completed, they're gearing up to start one on Ryan Road to specifically
look at what can be done in the near term as well as come up with some preliminary designs
and then what that will cost.
I think we have your information, what I will do is tomorrow I will send you the information,
I do know that that will be brought up at a city council work session in the very near
future just to keep you informed and updated on what's going on.
>> Commissioner Beck.
>> Thank you, vice chair.
Can I get Christy to come back up to respond to something that I think would address her
concern about water, if you don't mind.
She was giving us the impression that water is going to flow in their direction from this
development.
Is that?
That doesn't sound correct and when I'm looking at topography maps here, it looks like it's
going to be flowing the other direction.
>> Exactly.
Right, it also flows to the southwest towards that tributary that leads into Lake Forest
pond.
>> Right.
Does this development negatively impact that where it would make conditions worse for them
north of it?
>> I'm sorry, can you say it?
>> Does this development, this alternative VESAW negatively impact their drainage north
of it?
>> I can't speak to that as I don't have any hearing.
>> Okay.
Thanks, Christy.
>> Commissioner Beck, our development is downstream of that existing development so it would not
negatively impact.
>> Okay.
>> There wouldn't be a tail water created from our development that would have any impact.
>> We're actually receiving their water, sending it through our site in Lake Forest Park.
>> Okay.
Well, that's what I thought I wanted to be sure just to alight any concerns I had.
So thank you, Mr. Fletcher.
>> Commissioner Sanchez?
>> I had a question.
>> Oh, Mr. Fletcher.
>> I have a question.
Looking at exhibit C, you have Hollister, you won't be using Hollister but there'll be a
trail, right?
They'll connect both subdivisions.
>> That's correct.
>> And then you also have a little area there where you'll be able to access the park.
>> That's correct.
>> My question is you're going to have families, a lot of people like to drive the kids to
the park, not necessarily walk them to the park.
So to me it's like you're taking that away from families that want to drive to the park.
Instead of having to get on Ryan Road to come all the way to the park or come up Creekdale
Road, and those are pretty busy roads.
So you want to go through a neighborhood where there's not a whole lot of traffic that's
a lot safer than jumping on a main road to get to the park.
So when we first started looking at this project and the site, we did a traffic impact analysis,
we had meetings with the parks department, we looked at connecting to Duffy's Way.
The issue there is that you would get cut through traffic, that people were trying to
bypass Ryan Road or the intersection with Teasley and then you get cut through traffic
on Duffy's Way, which makes the park road, which is a private road, it's not a public
right of way, it makes the park road more congested and also potentially a safety issue.
So we did, we've been working through this process for several months now, had many meetings
with the city.
We did explore that because Duffy's Way is private, it's maintained by the parks department,
so we couldn't connect to it without it becoming a public road.
It was determined by city staff that they did not want to see Duffy's Way as a public
right of way, and that they felt that it would be a safety issue to the residents that are
using and enjoying the park.
So that's why it's pedestrian connectivity and not vehicular connectivity shown.
>> Okay.
>> Thank you.
I do have one more card on this item, David Bouchour.
>> He's got opposition marked on his card, so we'll just file that into the record.
This is a public hearing.
Anyone wishing to speak on this item can still do so, whether they have a card filled out
in front of me or not.
Anyone else wishing to speak on this item?
Okay, with that, I will close the public hearing and open the floor for a motion or a discussion.
Commissioner Pernetto.
>> Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to approve with an amendment to limit the chemical herbicides
to an aquatic-based product.
>> And with staff's recommendations, is that right?
>> With staff's recommendations, yeah.
>> Okay.
Commissioner Smith?
>> Second.
>> We have a first and a second to approve with staff recommendations in adding that
a --
>> Aquatic herbicides.
>> -- aquatic herbicide be used in the chemical removal of invasive species.
Is there a discussion?
Commissioner Sanchez?
>> Yeah, I'd like to talk about the herbicide.
I don't think we have enough information to say limit herbicides.
You know, herbicides can be -- actually can actually do more good than going there and
using --
>> Commissioner Sanchez, they're not limiting the herbicides.
It's -- they're requiring it be aquatic-based herbicides.
>> Well, I'm just saying any kind of herbicide.
When you're going to apply herbicide, you're going to apply -- if you're in a riparian
area, that's what you're going to apply.
You're not going to apply an upland herbicide in a buffer area.
I'm just saying leave that herbicide to the people that are doing it.
I don't think none of us know enough about herbicide to make any kind of statement that
just use aquatic herbicide.
Of course, they're going to use aquatic herbicides because that's the only thing that would be
licensed to be used in a buffer.
>> Commissioner Smith?
>> I think just to hopefully make this discussion short, because it's in a riparian area, riparian
buffer, it has to be aquatic, has to be aquatic herbicide, no matter what, Kristi, correct?
So --
>> In order for this application to comply with federal regulations, it would have to
be aquatic in order for -- you know, otherwise they would be out of compliance with federal
regulations.
>> So no offense even to the amendment or to the added recommendation by Commissioner
Pornetta, even that -- really that recommendation isn't really even needed because by federal
law it has to be aquatic.
It can be included in there for safe measure, but really the -- it's going to have to be
aquatic herbicide no matter what.
>> That was my question earlier to verify whether or not we had any stipulations on
that.
>> I apologize if I wasn't clear, but yes, that would be --
>> I can retract the amendment we came before with just staff recommendations if that's
more amenable.
>> We're safe once, we're safe twice, right?
>> Well, let's -- Commissioner Beck is on the board to speak, so let's let him speak
and --
>> That's okay.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Just some general comments.
I want to thank everybody for coming out and speaking.
I'm always glad to hear you and appreciate the project that Mr. Fletcher has put together.
I'm always nervous when we alter environmentally sensitive areas, but this looks like a good
one.
I think it's the right thing to do as opposed to hooking up to the adjoining neighborhood
and the fact that he's designing this in a way that preserves a lot of upland habitat
is always a delight to me.
So again, thanks for coming out, and I'm definitely going to vote for this approval for it, too.
Thank you.
>> Okay.
So Commissioner Pernetta, did you want to amend your motion?
>> I will withdraw the amendment and move to approve with staff recommendations.
>> Commissioner Smith?
>> I'll second.
>> Okay.
Let's call for a vote in a second amended motion to approve with staff recommendation.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's call for a vote on the board.
I'm sorry.
Commissioner Sanchez?
>> Oh, I was just going to -- I want to -- I'm going to vote for it.
I think it's a good idea, and I think the idea that it's already been -- the Fletcher
stretch has already been crossed before, previously, and all the precautions are taking as far
as being able to cross it again is no issue.
I think basically having two exits, one on -- even though, like somebody mentioned, Ryan
Road is a very busy road, and I'd like -- we get this complaint all the time, all the development
that's going on on Ryan Road.
We hear this time and time again how that road does not provide enough.
It's not sufficient for the amount of traffic, and that's all we can say.
But as far as I'm concerned about crossing, I think the developer is doing everything
he can to protect that branch, and so I'm going to vote for it.
>> Is there any further discussion?
Okay.
We will call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 6-0.
Thank you, everyone, for coming out.
That will move us to our next agenda item.
I will open the public hearing for DCA190001 and invite Ron up to present.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm going to give you a few minutes to pull up the presentation.
>> Good evening.
I'm Chair, members of the commission.
This item for your consideration is a proposed code amendment to address the question regarding
multifamily dwellings, collegiate housing, and the possible use of dormitory as a use.
For the presentation, for our agenda, is really to go over the purpose of the code amendment,
a little bit of background of how we got here, present a little bit of the research and survey
that the city has done, and discuss a couple things related to development standards and
other consideration as you guys considered this code amendment, and ultimately a recommendation
is what staff is seeking to bring forward to city council.
So as we discuss at work session, the question is, is this particular use a different use
than multifamily, or is it a separate use, it can be called collegiate housing or the
word dormitory.
The subject item that we're talking about, development type, is where the development
is rented by the bedroom.
We also, if we decide that it is a separate use, we would like to get Payne's recommendation
on where they should be permitted and what approval type would be in place for those
locations.
So staff has drafted a definition using an existing use that's in the development code
called dormitory, and the definition proposed is stated as follows, a structure with three
or more dwelling units in which individual bedrooms are individually rented for periods
in excess of 30 days in which each bedroom lacks exclusive use of a full kitchen.
And the box to the right identifies some of the potential uses that could fall on this,
but we've clarified that by stating facts.
One, it's not considered multifamily because multifamily is rented by the unit, while dormitory
or collegiate housing is rented by the bedrooms.
The hotel/motel is short-term rentals, they're typically rented for less than 30 days, while
this definition expresses that it is rented for more than 30 days.
Elderly housing, group homes, and those types of developments would not qualify under this
definition because those require special state licenses.
A boarding or rooming house would not be considered for this definition, primarily because of
it requires a owner of that dwelling unit to permanently reside in that house, and part
of this code amendment is to redefine or amend the definition of boarding and rooming house
to add that clarification.
And lastly, a full kitchen, just for discussion purposes, it contains plumbing and electrical
work for typical kitchen appliances, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves, and the like.
By way of background and how we got here, this started back as far as 2016, there was
a work session by council, during council, and at that time the council that heard this
item directed staff not to regulate this as a separate use.
During that work session, staff brought forward a code amendment to require SUPs for multi-family
and specific zoning districts.
At that work session, council directed staff to move forward with that specific use permit.
We then brought that forward to the Planning Zoning Commission, commission recommended
denial, I believe it was 5-1 or 4-1.
During that, city council also heard that amendment, and they also denied it after their
consideration.
Following that series of meetings, there was request by council at a meeting for more information
on multi-family and collegiate housing.
They had a little discussion during that request, and again, at that meeting, there was direction
from that council that it is not a separate use and it should just continue as multi-family.
A series of other amendments came forward to address the concerns and issues raised
by the neighborhoods that are affected or were affected by these types of developments.
We worked on a parking standard amendment code requirement, and through a number of
work sessions and public hearing, including the Planning Zoning Commission, that parking
standard was approved in March of 2018.
Following that, later that year, there was another request by council for more information
on multi-family and collegiate housing.
That really then brought up more discussion in how we should address this particular item.
I wanted to note that also as part of the Development Code Review Committee, who's directed
to work on the Development Code update, also has been looking at this issue through ongoing
discussions and research from our consultants.
They ultimately decided to have the full council provide direction, and they left it at that.
So we did bring it to the full council back in December, and again, we discussed it further.
This is an incorrect date.
We did follow that work session with another work session with city council, and at that
particular city council work session, they did direct staff to work on the definition,
which we did, and also to allow the dormitory use as a use for this particular development
type, and allow it only with a specific use permit, and I'll share with you what those
zoning districts are in a few slides further.
I wanted to share with you some of the presentation that we did provide the city council.
We did look at what is existing as far as these types of development, and when I say
these types of development, the developments that are specifically marketed for rent by
the bedroom.
We identified thirty-three developments in the city existing, I'm sorry, twenty-six existing,
and seven that are in either proposed or in under construction.
As you can see on this map, they are located primarily surrounding the University of North
Texas.
There's a few around T.W., and then a majority of the others are south of downtown.
We know that these areas that are further from the universities are served by DCTA,
and they are also increasing in number.
The increase in number is associated with the increase in enrollment in our universities.
We anticipate that by 2030, approximately seven or eight thousand more students are
going to be enrolled in the universities.
That means 8,000 more students, 8,000 more needs of housing, and 8,000 more traffic and
other related items that come with these type of developments.
So how do we address this?
We looked at the zoning districts where these thirty-three developments are either existing
or will be placed, and we found that in the DR2 zoning district, fourteen of them exist
or are proposed, and DCG came in second, and the rest have one of these types of developments.
We also looked at the composite or how they're put together, and the numbers that came out
of that research is that approximately 6,153 units are rented by the bedroom.
That equates to approximately 18,000 bedrooms total, if you were to add all of the bedrooms.
Those that are currently rented by the bedrooms, approximately 2,992 units were converted.
They were once multifamily, by the units, they converted into rented by the bedrooms.
That represents about 34 percent of that 6,153.
I also want to note that the city, as of December, has approximately 21,899 multifamily units.
The 6,153, the rented by the bedrooms, represent 28 percent of that.
So about a third of our multifamily are rented by the bedrooms.
We also researched other cities, approximately 29 cities in Denton, I'm sorry, in Texas.
Seventeen responded.
They all address this separately and differently.
The majority of them don't do anything.
Some of them have overlay districts.
Some of them have definitions and listed as a separate use.
Those three specifically are San Marcos, who calls these type of developments purpose built
student housing, College Station for a particular area calls them Northgate high density dwelling,
and then San Antonio has a use called school dormitory or housing off campus.
That's the three that we were able to find that are examples of addressing this as a
separate use.
Back to the purpose and really the reason why we're here is for your consideration
and your recommendation on this particular development type, again, units that are rented
by the bedrooms.
Is it a separate use?
If so, staff is recommending that we call it dormitory and have the definition revised
to be revised and amended to read as shown on this screen.
If that is the direction or the recommendation from the Planning Zoning Commission, we also
would like to talk about the location.
Before we do that, I just want to share with you dormitory is currently, again, in the
development code.
It is permitted in the following zoning districts, three with an SUP and three permitted by right.
Staff is recommending that along with the definitions that will be amended, that the
land use or the allowed uses be amended as well to allow dormitories by right in the
DR2, SUP in the NRMU12, NRMU, and DR1, and then with a limitation of L39 in the DCN and
DCG.
That limitation is if a dormitory is proposed to be over 45 feet, that we require a specific
use permit.
As I mentioned earlier, the Council did discuss this item and directed staff that they also
would like to see the definition amendment and also to amend the allowed uses table as
you see here and allow dormitories as shown here with SUP throughout the zoning districts.
Looking forward to the development code update, we want to make sure that we are consistent.
Again, if whatever the decision is by the City Council, we will make sure that the future
code update reflects that change so we're not back here discussing this.
Hopefully we do get a decision by Council along with your recommendation and when that
is, we will make sure that the code update reflects that amendment.
I won't spend too much time on these next few slides.
These are just other considerations for the Planning and Zoning Commission to consider.
As I mentioned earlier, the Council or the City recently adopted back in March of 2018
parking standards that required parking one per bedroom for multifamily and added the
visitor parking requirement.
Traffic impact analysis will always be required as part of a site plan review process if it
triggers a traffic impact analysis and we're constantly looking at how we can do better
on neighborhood compatibility either through setbacks and buffers.
Special purpose overlay districts is another tool we can use.
Of course, there's a specific use permit as you know where if there is one proposed, we
have that opportunity to discuss further.
And then our neighborhood meetings, you saw that with this recent one, they had two and
it was evident from the property owners that had that petition, it was in favor so that
seems to work as well.
So there's room to work on making sure that we have neighborhood compatibility as we work
through these decisions.
One of the things that we want to keep in mind as well is the enforcement of these types
of development.
As you know, there's the opportunity to convert a multifamily into a rented by the bedroom,
dormitory, collegiate housing, whatever we call it, after the fact and your consideration
is that that is a possibility.
So how do we make sure that we address that moving forward?
The other consideration is that this definition does not include single family, duplex or
townhomes, those that rent by the bedroom in these types of development would not be
subject to the SUP.
This is a different discussion.
This is something that we would bring back at a later time.
What we're trying to address is the larger developments, the more than three units per
acre.
That's what's being proposed tonight.
And again, this is my last slide, just to restate staff's recommendation that we amend
the definition of dormitory and allow it by SUP as shown here, permitted as well as permitted
with limitation.
We would also seek your recommendation on the definition of boarding and rooming house.
As I mentioned earlier, we like to add the clarification that the owner of the dwelling
reside permanently at that location.
That concludes my presentation.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Ron.
We have several.
Commissioner Brunetto.
Yeah, I've got a few.
So right now, they're currently counted as just a multifamily unit, right?
That's how they are classified, yes.
So a third of our multifamily units are dormitory, SRO.
And out of that, a third of those were converted, they were previously rented as a unit, not
by the room, right?
Correct.
They started out as regular multifamily and of the 6,153 that we know of were multifamily
and converted to rented by the bedroom.
Excellent.
So with that in mind, I guess my question is, is there a reason that we are limiting
this SUP to three or more dwelling units?
Because one of the things that we have seen around campus is things that were previously
two bedrooms are now rented in an SRO fashion.
You know, is there a reason we do that instead of just going from like more than one to two?
Any type of unit where they can break out that lease agreement would be qualifying as
this.
So just to clarify your question, are you referring to a single family or a duplex that
is rented by the bedroom, is that what you're referring to?
Yeah, well, by the definition of dormitory in your slide, you say a structure with three
or more dwelling units in which the individual - I'm sorry, you know what, I guess we're
talking about the units and I'm sorry, not the bedrooms.
So it's not limited to the bedroom, it is anything that's broken out.
Correct.
Okay, I'm sorry, I just realized I was off reading it.
So the next thing I had was the height of 45 feet, is that an either/or or are we saying
that if there's some - would they require an additional approval to be not just a dormitory
but a dormitory that's over 45 feet?
It's a proposed dormitory over 45 feet would require a specific use per - and that's staff's
recommendation.
Okay.
And as I presented, Council doesn't want to see that, but again, we're here to hear
what the Commission wants to see and we can bring that forward to City Council.
Okay.
So as that's written right now, what we're saying is that if it is over 45 feet, basically
in addition to this rental structure, it would have to be over 45 feet in addition.
So we could recommend that the 45 feet is not, you know, a stipulation that requires
us, it could just be anything that's rented by the bedroom.
I'm sorry, I didn't just repeat that all the time.
So as I look at this right now, per this, it would have to be an SRO type rental.
Correct.
Meet that definition.
And be over 45.
Correct.
And it would be only applied to the DCN and the DCG.
That's the limitation L39.
If you're proposing a dormitory by definition, you meet that definition within the DCN or
DCG.
Staff's recommending that we adopt a code that requires the specific use permit for
those developments.
Okay.
And I guess my last question for now is, we're not proposing any kind of grandfathering in
right now, are we?
So if...
If they're existing, they're existing.
We can't do anything about that.
We're talking about future developments.
Okay.
So...
And when we say existing, I mean, in terms of an existing building that decides to start
renting by the, you know, renting its units by the room.
If and when we, and that's the difficult part, right?
Right.
If and when we adopt this, and at that date moving forward, if we learn that a development
was a multi-family rented by the unit, converted to a rented by the bedroom, we would actually
take action in that regard because they were not existing as a dormitory.
So they don't have that qualification.
Okay.
So it wouldn't be the age of the building or when the building was built, it would be
when they actually moved to that particular practice?
That type of, right.
That type of rental.
Okay.
All right.
That's all I have for now.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Ron, just a couple of things on the definition.
Just help me define some of the words that are in there.
Dwelling unit, is that specifically referring to it having to be a self-sustainable, has
its own bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, that defines a quote unquote dwelling unit there?
Correct.
Okay.
Understood.
Whenever we are looking at this, I know we said we're going to address town homes and
single family later.
In the event that there's a fourplex or a three-level town home that then can be rented
out by the, you know, the flats can be rented out by the rooms there, do you see that there
might be a gray area there where there might be a couple properties that could fall that
are not multifamily, but they're also not single family?
Yeah.
Specifically, the duplexes are probably going to be the ones that are going to cause more
than anything else.
Because we know the single family, you know, they're obviously one per lot.
Town homes, one per lot.
The duplexes, because you're adding two units, it makes it a little bit more.
And the three and fourplexes, they currently right now in the code fall into a multifamily?
Multifamily, correct.
Okay.
So duplex is the word.
Duplex is where the line is drawn.
Correct.
That's what I needed to know.
So, okay.
Why did, I guess two things on your recommendation and on City Council's recommendation.
Why did council suggest an SUP across the board?
I think it's just more of an opportunity to address any concerns from the community is
what I got out of it.
So that's primarily it.
Our proposal is that we know that a lot of the developments that we've seen recently,
of course, parking is a big deal.
We have a new parking requirement.
You know, traffic, we have TIAs that address that.
You know, adjacency, we have buffers and screening.
But when it comes to height, you know, maybe there's things that we can use or can do to
eliminate or not eliminate, but limit the impact.
And so that's why we propose a specific use permit over 45 feet.
And the SUP could kick in a TIA, that's correct, you're, that's, if there's an SUP required
in that project, then underneath the definition of the SUP could kick in the need to be able
to assess parking and traffic impact analysis.
Right.
I mean, even without an SUP, you know, analysis would be required again through the site plan
process.
Got it.
Okay.
The L39, that's still, that's, it's not an SUP, it's just, it's an SUP as long as it's
over 45.
Correct.
If you're below, you're 44.
You're good to go.
Why, so why, why is the staff recommendation, the height, why is the height requirement
in there?
Better question.
Why did you guys not just go right to SUP for everybody, for all, for all, for all zoning
districts?
Why didn't, why didn't you guys, the staff recommend that?
I think, I think.
Knowing your thought process.
Right.
I think it's, back to what I said earlier, is that, you know, we have development standards
already in place, forgets parking and traffic, as well as buffering and screening.
We felt that when it comes to height, there's, there's a possibility of ways to address that
through an SUP process, so, so 45 feet is the, the max height from DR2 down this way,
they can't go over 45 feet.
Yeah.
It's just when you get to DCN and DCG.
So it was, it was kind of more of the staff was trying to be as, as least restrictive
as possible, essentially, the thing that, look, there's, there's already, there's already
imposed restrictions on, within these zoning districts already, adding an SUP on top of
that would be somewhat overkill in a way.
Right.
There's already restrictions in place that are, that are kind of helping mitigate some
of the issues that we're seeing.
And we see them being developed in the DCN and DCG.
Gotcha.
And so, again, it's just that opportunity, like you said, to, to address any concerns
that the city has.
Okay.
So that, that, so with the City Council, that means anybody who has the SRO form whatsoever,
if it's, it's a single, it's a single story, but it's a, you know, a 10, 10 unit single
story, it's a really weird looking building, don't, don't, don't ask me why it's constructed
that way.
But, but it doesn't matter.
It's, it's boom, SCP.
Correct.
Doesn't matter because it's, it's tied directly to that leasing model there.
That, that is the, the discussion that they had at the work session.
Okay.
We, and at that, that work session, they were, they directed staff to, to bring this forward
and we obviously want to hear from you all as well.
Okay.
Ron, I think Richard wanted to add just a little bit to the, to your question.
Yeah, then I have a couple more things to say.
I was just going to add a little bit more on, on that, on that 45 foot.
A lot of, a lot of the, as part of the deliberations and just discussion with council and other
members of the public, the big concern was compatibility and adjacency with single family.
And really that max height in, I think in all of our single family districts is 45 feet.
And so when looking at it in, in that context, as well as factoring in the parking that would
be required and everything else, you're really not going to get that high level of intensity
at that, at that, at that height.
And that, that's part of the, part of the, the reason for that.
So within that mind, could you go through those zoning districts real quick and just
say what they are exactly and what the typical use is there just so it kind of, I can't,
I don't have my, I don't, I should probably be about to pull that out.
Sure.
Well, NRMU is 12 units per acre, primarily in between your neighborhood residential to
your commercial uses.
So it's kind of like the in between NRMU is a little bit more intense with more commercial
type uses, DR1, downtown residential one.
So it doesn't have a, I don't know exactly things, eight units per acre, DR2 is, I want
to say 30 and it increases from there, DCG is 150 units per acre.
So you can see an increase in the density with the DR1, DR2, DCN, DCG.
As you get in, go to that direction, the amount of commercial uses increases as well.
So, so that, that's primarily what you see and when you look at the map, the zoning map,
those are what you see these types of developments are located.
Or in DCG.
DCG, right.
DCG, DR2 is a lighter green, DCN is, is one of the, a little bit less, they're not as
many and then the NRMU are the red and then the NRMU-12 is the red with the hatches.
So there are, developers are already primarily focusing on DCG already for the, for development
and that's not because of anything else other than just that makes sense compatibility wise
down that area.
Correct.
And then that's how the, the area is currently zoned.
Got it.
Really no more questions, just, I guess, more statement or recommendation to you as you
go forward.
I personally, having done a lot of research on student housing and the impact on low income
housing in the city of Denton, I actually would, would strongly encourage SROs in, in
the best way possible though, trying to have growth but with mitigation to neighborhood
integrity.
The, the biggest thing is for, for me and from what I understand and from my research
has been if we promote SROs, promoting it in areas that are non, non-neighborhood centric
like the, the development that we saw 18 months ago or so that was across 35, that's still
close enough to the university, that still has DCTA access, that's out there on Oak Street,
the other side of 30, on the west side of 35, an area that's not impeding upon a neighborhood
where you can stack units and put students in there because in my mind and it seems counterintuitive
to encourage SROs to be able to help low income housing but in reality the develop, the development
of new SROs means that those existing multifamily stay low income multifamily and the existence
of single, we're gonna get to single family and duplex later on but the existence of low
income single family and duplex stay away from being utility for students.
It allows for a new development to be geared directly and marketed directly to students
rather than developers looking at the, the cheap alternative of conversion and the conversions
where we're really getting hurt right now in the city of Denton.
It's not the new development in our SROs, it's the converting of current multifamily
that could be used for low income housing, that's where we're really getting hurt and
so that's my recommendation and so I would just try to, I don't know what the rules exactly
would be but rules that would discourage conversions in neighborhoods and rather encourage new
development would be the direction I would wanna see this SRO ordinance or ruling go
and so I like the idea of the SUP, I'd actually probably side further with the staff recommendation
of using the L39 rather than SUP across the board, I feel like the SUP across the board
would be a little restrictive once the, especially once you get to higher density areas where
it kind of makes sense to have a high density development like that but as long as it kicks
in that SUP at some point in time, I think that'd be important, so.
- Great.
- Commissioner Beck.
- Thank you vice chair.
Thank you Tron for a most excellent and informative presentation, appreciate it.
Let me first ask an overarching question, a concept here in your information material,
you stated as Denton University student enrollment continues to grow, so does the need to provide
housing for students, okay, one of the arguments I and others have made when developers come
to us and wanna do SRO type developments is I didn't think it was Denton's focus to provide
student housing, that should be up to the university, so are you kind of indicating
here that we are in that business of, no?
- No, just following the trends right, as you know, obviously we're seeing a lot of
these type developments and the reason is the universities are growing and we should
see some of that reflected as well in these types of developments.
- Okay, but for the most part we still expect the universities to provide housing for their
students.
- Yeah, I mean, I believe they have certain requirements, I think their freshman class
has to be on campus while that's all they require, the other class has to find other
living quarters.
- Yeah, we can't control them what they do anyway, so I understand, okay.
- What essentially we're talking about here is SROs, the dormitory nomenclature, that's
fine and it's definition, I'm okay with that, but I'm glad you brought up that we're not
dealing with single family homes and duplexes and everything and need to be later 'cause
my question was before you raised that is what's to stop a developer from going into
an area where it allows single family homes and duplexes and just build a row in there
and then rent 'em out as SROs, so is that--
- Right, that is a concern and we are seeing that we actually have some of those currently
now in the city, some on Prairie Street and then some on, I believe it's Nev Street, not
too far from the university, where they removed or redeveloped a single family detached home,
built a duplex and built it up to four, maybe five bedrooms and that's changing the streetscape
or the character of the neighborhood and we certainly want to address that as well, but
when we first started this effort it was really to deal with the larger complexes.
- And I agree, I agree, I'm glad though that you are gonna realize that that is something
we do need to look at as far as single family homes and duplexes.
- What is the area zoned where we do have a single family houses that's just south of
downtown, we brought this up when that bank wanted to encroach in there, is that DR2,
what is that?
- That's DCG.
- Is it DCG?
- I believe.
- And that's one of the areas where they could build up to 45 feet, anything over it would
require--
- Yeah, I think it's just generally right here and it looks like it's DCG.
- Okay, and that's the one that you wanna allow, that's your recommendation.
- Right with the--
- That they could build up to 45 feet, anything higher than that would--
- And over, would require a specific use permit.
- Yeah, see I have a problem with that, I think 45 feet is just way too much, depending
on where they put it, if it's on the periphery I probably wouldn't have a problem, but you
know when somebody sells a couple of lots then and then they wanna go right in the middle
of that neighborhood, so I'm kind of in line with the City Council, probably just going
across the board with the SUPs, I know it sounds restrictive and everything like that,
but to me the SUP is the one element that the public has to control development just
a little bit, it's not that we're always gonna rule in favor of the public or the developer,
but it gives that public that sense of control, so I wouldn't be opposed to that.
- And just lastly, your definition for boarding rooms, I think is spot on, so I don't see
any need to change that, I think you hit all the points there, if somebody else on the
commission has something to add, I'd be glad to hear it, but I think you're fine with that.
- Thank you.
- Commissioner Sanchez.
- Again, I wanted to talk a little bit about, I was looking at the definition in the back
of this book, they're using the definition of what a dormitory was, and it's somewhat
different from what we're looking at here, and so to me that's an established definition
that people use when they look at dormitories, when we're looking at SROs that's an entirely
different animal, and to me that should have its own definition, something that's specific
to that issue, to that type of construction, now, for example, I don't know, SROs or students
sometimes say semester over or they graduate or whatever, some students continue living
in those SROs as opposed to a dormitory where the university usually, if you're out that
semester, you're out, but in these SROs, some students continue to live there as I understand,
because I've heard of students living in those SROs even after, say, whether they fail or
whatever happens, they'll continue living there, so I think we need to define, leave
the definition for dormitories alone and just start anew with it, I like that definition
for, but call it collegiate housing or something different, because what we're looking at is
we want to look, we want to separate that from multifamily, okay, so let's start anew
and just leave it, yeah, dormitory alone, because that's established, we've been with
that for years, let's just keep it there and start anew.
The other question I had is, you mentioned something about location, so I think it's
important to look at that when we talk about SROs is the location, it's almost, they should
be close to the university, we should at least push that, because a lot of these students,
even though you said the buses are available, I don't know if you've ever taken the bus
in the city of Dent, it's nothing, if you have a choice between walking, riding a bike,
you probably prefer that, you know, so I'm just saying is we need to look at trying to
keep those as close to the university as possible, as far as your definition, as you said you
also wanted to look at the definition for boarding and boarding house, I have a real
issue where it says where the owner of the dwelling permanently resides, why would we
require that, if you're renting a room, why do you have to live with your tenant?
Because again, we wanted to differentiate that versus the dormitory or whatever collegiate
housing that we're calling, because otherwise they would fall under that definition, so
if you're proposing to have a home, or not home, because we're not looking at single
family or duplexes, but if you're proposing to lease out a multi-family, or three bedrooms
or more, whatever it may be, you want to be able to differentiate between the dormitory
and the boarding and rooming house, and that's the only way we were able to determine that
that's the difference between the two.
That's the only thing, I had a real issue with that, because a lot of people, it may
be a boarding house, it may be a business, especially if you're talking about up to 20
persons, that allows a business to have 20 people living there, it doesn't make sense
why you have to live with them.
I think we need to look at that, and I just have an issue with that, that was added on
afterwards, I guess.
That's part of the clarification.
Yeah, that was added on afterwards.
The bold that you see here, yes that is added on to there.
So my question, I'm just saying this, you shouldn't, just because you have a boarding
house or a rooming house, I don't mind the rest of it, but I just see that you shouldn't
make that a requirement.
Yeah, I see that in Commissioner Sanchez, I just realized that it says a dwelling, so
by our definition of a dormitory, if it's three or more, this wouldn't fall under that.
So we can look into maybe not requiring that, and maybe that doesn't fall under the definition
of a dormitory, because it does say a dwelling, and by definition, because this says three
or more, the boarding house may not qualify as a dormitory, just for that reason alone.
So we can see potentially removing that requirement, again, and not be considered a dormitory.
And that was the intent of adding that, but I can see that there's a way to work it without
adding that requirement.
Okay.
Commissioner Pernitto.
To Commissioner Sanchez's question real quick, before I go into my thoughts and concerns,
I'm fine with this definition, because really, if you live in a house and you're renting
out to 20 strangers and charging them all separate rents, that's probably not going
to happen, right?
You're probably not going to want to live there, and you're probably not going to want
to live there, because it's all 20 strangers all paying separate rents, and if we take
that out, that's just basically giving somebody a loophole, you know?
I mean, you wouldn't want 20 strangers in your house paying separate rent just to stay
in there, right?
You know, if you did that, you would basically be doing what is, in essence, the definition
of what we're calling an SRO, right?
I think what you're doing, a boarding house and an SRO are two different animals.
SROs are geared for students that are going to college.
Okay.
Okay?
A boarding house is primarily geared to people of low income and people that can afford maybe,
you know, an apartment, so the clients are two different clients.
Well, and the problem is, and that's kind of where I'm going to go with this, is technically
we don't have those two different clients in Denton.
Whenever we hear about what we're calling dormitory, but what is essentially SRO, the
main concern that I've gotten from anyone who's talked to me about this over the last
couple of years is the impact that it has on affordable housing, right?
Basically this model is, particularly the conversions, are impacting people's ability
to find, you know, basically units for their family.
And to that end, I think if we're, you know, making a recommendation, I would prefer to
take out the 45-foot stipulation on there because, you know, at that point we're saying,
well, if it's over 45 feet, well, there's not a lot of buildings that are 45 feet around
here.
And the main problem that we're having is that we have a lot of, you know, property
managers moving toward this model, which in effect lets them increase their profits without
making any structural changes to the housing, right?
And thereby driving up the prices of the properties around them and making it seem more lucrative.
You're going to wind up seeing more and more people go, hey, I'm renting out this apartment
for $1,000, but if I, you know, rented it to two students for $700 apiece, I could get
an extra $400 a month without having to do anything.
And I think that's kind of one of the concerns, and I think that's probably why City Council
kind of removed it, and it's one of the, you know, it's the primary drive I think we have
behind what we're doing, because if we remove that, you know, there's no real reason to
differentiate from one building to another, and I understand why it's happening.
In effect, what we're doing right now is having to address the fact that UNT hasn't kept up
with its own demand for housing its students, much less giving them parking.
So my goal, my hope is that we approve this, because I do understand that we have too many
students to house, and there is a purpose for this.
But right now, I think the 45-foot is too much of a loophole to let people, you know,
take advantage.
Like Commissioner Beck said, you know, what's the stop somebody from taking a row of houses,
or as you've described, this has already happened.
So I like what we've got here.
I would hope that we remove the 45-foot.
I'm actually fine with the definitions of, you know what, if you're going to rent this
out to that many people, chances are you need to live in there, or else that's one more
loophole that we have in there to keep people from, you know, adhering to what we're hoping
to do.
I think that's all I've got.
I think that was my rant.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Okay.
I'm just going to chime in on a few things here, because I think we're getting a couple
of different discussions going, because I think SRO is kind of a separate discussion
in and of itself in the sense that you can have an SRO in a single-family home, and that's
just for another time and another discussion.
I think what we've got to drill down, and that's what I think we're trying to do here,
but I think we've missed it, is what is the definition of these high-density rent-by-the-bedroom
developments that are going to continue to show their face, because it's a very popular
development concept.
We are a college town.
It's going to happen, and there's a need for it.
There's absolutely a need for it.
We can't regulate it because we don't know what to call it, because we don't have any
use restrictions for it.
To Commissioner Sanchez's point, we do have a definition for dormitory.
This is not a dormitory.
It really isn't.
I understand maybe how you got there, but I don't, because it's a very specific use.
I like what San Marcos did.
It's student-specific housing.
That is what it is.
That's what these developments are.
That's what has gotten us to this circle for the last three years.
Those developments are what keeps us here in this circle, but we've got to define it.
We have to figure this out.
I don't know if it's going to be tonight, because I don't know that we got to where
we need to be going.
I absolutely am on board with needing an SUP across the board with whatever the zoning
districts are.
We need to regulate where we're going to put these, because where we put these affects
our community.
One of the biggest things is the scripture development.
That's kind of what got all this started well, and the one on Hickory as well.
We have got to figure this out as a city, because this is not going to go away.
For me, I'd love more time with this.
I don't like dormitory, because it means something to most people.
It doesn't mean these high-density developments that run by the bedroom.
That is not what people think of when they think dormitory.
I just didn't want to interrupt, but we're not stuck.
We can move forward with some other term, but does the definition at least get us there?
Not using the word dormitory, but the definition that we've proposed?
Yeah, I think the definition is okay.
It's the term.
It's what are we going to call these?
That I think needs further discussion.
I'm okay with boarding house, and actually the traditional definition of a boarding house
is someone who lives in their home and rents out a bedroom in their house.
If you go way back to when it's what my parents did, my grandparents did, that's just what
happened.
That's actually a more correct definition, in my opinion, on that.
To me, I think this needs further tweaking, and I don't know that we're going to be able
to figure that out today, so I'll just throw that out there to my fellow commissioners
and to staff that we may need more time with this and more time to actually discuss it.
We weren't afforded a work session discussion on this, and that's really too bad, in my
opinion.
Anyway, I'm going to stop speaking because there's more commissioners who want to say
something.
Sure.
Commissioner Cole.
Thank you, Chair.
I guess the question is, which way do we go on this?
SUP straight across, that's what I prefer, but I also have a problem with dormitory.
It should be student-specific housing instead, or whatever San Marcos does, but this all
comes back to scripture normal, putting a five-story building next to a historical neighborhood.
That's what triggered most of this, but I'm for SUPs across the board, but maybe we need
further discussion on this.
Commissioner Sanchez.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I guess the only thing I have about boarding houses is that boarding houses can go from
four individuals to 20 individuals, so we have to allow for somebody who wants to develop
a 20-people boarding house, so that doesn't really allow you to ... The old boarding houses,
I think, were five, six ... I know years ago, my parents used to rent a room in their house,
but those were years ago.
I'm just saying this.
We have to allow for expansion of the idea of boarding houses, and when you have 20 people,
that's good, to me, it's kind of like you're going to hire somebody to help you overlook
it, because it'd be a lot of work to manage 20 people living in your house, and nobody
has a house that big, I don't think.
You would actually have kind of like an old hotel or something that you could convert
to a boarding house, and then you would have somebody available there, but you wouldn't
want to live there either.
I'm just saying this.
Give us a window.
Make it more ... Expand the definition, I mean, expand the definition.
Remove that so a person can expand the boarding house without having to have that restriction
there.
Okay.
Commissioner Prenama.
I guess my question is where we are right now, because obviously, we're not in a position
to vote to recommend, and I think that's what we were initially tasked to do, to vote to
recommend.
So I know we've tossed out a few things, recommendations for staff to take back and
come back with something.
What is the next appropriate action?
Would it be to table to a date certain, or open up a public hearing, by the way, I guess?
First, I know Richard has something that he wanted to say, and then we can continue that.
Just wanted to provide a little bit ... I know we've had quite a, almost a confusing
conversation, I think, on this item, and that was one of the suggestions I was going to
make is that we really kind of look at how we define this.
I think we would be a little remiss if we ... I know we talk about, let's come back
with single family and duplex, but I can't tell you, we get a number of complaints from
residents with concerns within their single family neighborhood.
Part of the concern, I think, at least from staff, putting it with SUPs across the board,
not saying it's not needed, but it almost forces someone ... If you have the opportunity,
why would you go through the SUP if you can buy a house that's much cheaper, put a six-bedroom
single family house, rent by the bedroom?
It might be worth ... because we're seeing it.
The concern I have is, all of a sudden, you're going to have blocks.
We see it already in some of the neighborhoods that have completely changed.
Bryan, Texas has gone through that now, they were calling them stealth dorms is the term
they were using.
I think it's a much bigger issue, but I think we still need to, as we continue to move this
larger issue, I think we still need to not necessarily push the single family and duplex
for later, but also still think about that now.
Just looking at trends, just running quick numbers.
Of the total bedrooms, 18% of the 18,000, 3,251, are being proposed within the last
two years.
That's pretty substantial over two years.
It's a lot.
Just looking at overall, just to give you how this fits in, if you look at the undergraduate
admission for both UNT and TWU, again, these aren't exact numbers, just what I was able
to dig up.
If you look at the number of commuters, I think UNT estimated there at around 8,000.
The 18,000 represents 50% of the undergraduate students.
50% of those bedrooms represent 50% of the undergraduate students, which is pretty substantial.
If 18% of that was just in the last two years, it's here and it's going to continue to come.
Obviously, we need to address it, but what I don't want to do is also ignore it to a
certain extent, where we're going to push the problem into our single-family neighborhoods.
With that, one thing that we didn't do, because this is still your presentation and we've
just had discussion, is find out if there's anyone who wants to speak at this public hearing.
Is there anyone wishing to speak at this public hearing?
Would you like to?
There is no pressure.
I'm simply...
Do you live in an SRO?
Come on down.
My name is Tamsen Price, I live at 707 Bernard Street, apartment number 12, Denton, TX 7601.
I was not planning on speaking tonight, I just kind of wanted to come and hear what
you guys had to say, but a couple of comments that I had.
So the thing about SROs, I know you guys are saying that they're particularly for collegiate
use, but there's actually no stipulation that it has to just be college students that live
in them.
I know a lot of people who live, particularly in the one that I live in, which is the metro
apartments, they're not college students, it's just one of the more cheaper options
to live in.
But also, the apartment that I live in is a two-bedroom, it's like 750 square feet,
and we get charged $640 for each bedroom.
It's a really crappy apartment.
Like really crappy.
But also, yeah, I don't know what the heck I'm saying.
Also I used to live at 3317 Cooper Ranch East, which was a four-bedroom, what you guys are
assuming is a single-family home.
Our landlord lived out of state, and it was rented out by the room.
A lot of people in the neighborhood did not like having us there, and there were a couple
of other houses that were rented out like that, because there wasn't enough parking
on the street.
And that's one of the biggest issues that I have, is that there's just not enough parking
for all the people who live there.
So we had four cars that were parked on our street and in our driveway, and it was always
an issue with the neighbors trying to get in and out, and we were parking on their side
of the street and blocking their driveway.
So in the apartment that I currently live in, there's two people in each apartment,
so there's 24 apartments total.
And we don't have enough parking for all of the residents and additional visitors.
And I know that there's a lot right next to our apartment that actually went up before
this board in the fall for replatting.
That they're going to put two duplexes on, possibly, is what I've heard.
And from the size of the lot, I just don't understand how it's going to be able to fit
as many people as they're going to try and push in there with the parking spaces.
So yeah, that's all I have to say.
>> Looks like we have a couple questions for you.
[ Laughter ]
>> Oh, no.
>> Commissioner Beck.
>> Thank you, Vice Chair.
Actually, when I put my name up there, I still had a comment I wanted to make in our discussion,
but she mentioned something that raises a question.
You said the apartments you live in don't necessarily have students, and that SROs don't
necessarily, you know, fit the need of just students.
But they do fit the needs of single people, or maybe couples, but not families with children.
You don't have -- do you have families with children in this?
>> Yeah, down the street, there's a family that lives in one, but it's multiple families.
>> Okay, right.
But in yours, what you're saying is pretty much an SRO.
There's not families with children in that?
>> Not that I know of in my particular --
>> Okay.
And I agree that SROs aren't strictly for students, so that's one of the targeted populations.
But it does meet a need for single people, couples, young couples who have yet to have
a family.
Once they're ready to establish a family, I think they do want to move into a family
unit, multi-family apartment, or single-family residential.
But thank you for your input, too, Ms. Price.
And I'll come back later, because I think, Tim, Commissioner Smith wants to ask you something,
but I --
>> Commissioner Smith.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Let me go last down.
I'm sorry.
>> Price?
>> Price, Ms. Price.
Is there -- in the single-family residence you lived in, was the landlord in town?
>> No.
So in the single-family residence that I lived in before, the landlord lived in Washington.
>> Okay.
And the homes that were -- I'm sorry, the rooms, did you move in there -- it was rented
out specifically by the room that you didn't know the other three people that lived in
that whatsoever?
>> No.
>> Okay.
Did you ever feel unsafe at all at any point in time, because you didn't know the other
three people that are in that?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Okay.
Awesome.
You've answered my questions.
Thank you.
Staff, you know what?
I'll put it on my motion.
You're good.
Thank you very much, Ms. Price.
I appreciate it.
>> Can I actually say something to his comment?
So that's one of the things that, like, SROs are marketed as being more -- better for students,
because you're able to have your own lease.
And so if your roommate violates the lease at any point or doesn't pay their rent, it
doesn't affect you.
You won't get evicted.
But at the same time, once someone's lease is up, the landlords can move in whoever they
want.
And you have no real options besides filing a complaint or filing a request for a roommate
change or an apartment change, which oftentimes don't happen.
I have a friend, actually, that's going through an issue right now with Denton PD, where she
was assaulted by her roommate, and her apartment complex won't move the roommate out of the
apartment and won't let her move out as well.
And so she's stuck in a room where she can't go and use any of the common spaces.
>> Is that a -- I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Is that a single-family residence or is that an apartment complex?
>> No, that's what we're terming as an SRO.
>> Okay, but I guess what I mean by that is, is it an SRO but inside of a single-family
complex?
Like, it's an actual home, the same structure you had previously, or is it like what you
live in now, which is a "apartment complex" where it's multiple dwellings but each room
is --
>> It's what I live in now.
>> Okay, what you live in now.
Okay.
Well, actually, what you're bringing up, I was going to -- I was wanting to bring it
up whenever I made my motion in a minute, but I think the point that I wanted to make
and why I wanted to ask you those questions and why I asked where your owner, the owner
of that single-family residence was, who was renting out by room -- by single-resident
or single-room occupancy lease model was because at least if the very -- at least if there's
something like the university courtyards or there's something like the Grove or those
other, you know, SRO-type models that already exist, at least there is a management staff
that is required to be there at all times, and so there could be -- and there's -- and
you probably -- hopefully the place you live in now, but I've -- you know, I grew up in
Denton.
I've been in these SROs before where there are the -- there's the red button in every
single room now.
Almost every single one of the new SROs that's going up now, there has to be a red button
in every single room in the event that an assault or something like that occurs that
immediately calls emergency services, and so I think the motion I was going to make was
to be able to get staff to see that we need to talk about single-family duplex along with
the multi-family together.
We can't separate them.
We have to do it together.
We have to -- we have to try to address it as soon as possible because if we address
them separately, in my mind, we're going to end up forcing people to go and do this -- well,
let's go buy up blocks of single-family residences and try to turn these into SROs now because
we're getting basically pushed out of doing conversions in multi-family residences.
So I actually really appreciate you being here tonight.
So thank you.
Thank you for speaking.
Commissioner Beck, did you have a question for the staff?
Yeah, what I was going to say, and it'll probably -- I'm not sure what Commissioner Smith is
going to motion.
I just -- it seems like we are stuck on the word dormitory, so I'm okay with the definition.
You know, if we could move the definition forward, I'm okay with that, and then we can
come -- I always like the term collegiate housing.
I thought that encompassed more what we're looking for here, but then we get to the part
about SUPs, so I don't know -- we probably need to do a vote on who stands -- I'm personally
okay with SUPs across the board, but I get the feeling there's a few that aren't.
Okay.
So I'll just say that, and then we'll see what's offered up in Commissioner Smith's
motion.
Thank you.
Okay.
Well, before I entertain that, I'm going to find out if there's anyone else wishing to
speak at this public hearing.
And seeing none, I will close the public hearing, and Commissioner Smith.
Thank you.
I'd like to make a motion to table this discussion to date certain of March 6th, 2019, and I
would like to give -- while we table the discussion, I'd like to give staff direction to, one,
I want to try to address this problem along with single-family and duplex.
I think that if we don't, we could foreseeably open up a gap of time where there could be
some shifts and changes that wouldn't be favorable, and so I'd rather address it all at one point
in time, understanding the all-encompassing problem that we have.
Commissioner Smith, let's state your motion, see if we get a second, and then we can have
discussion, please.
Sure.
Okay, motion to table to date certain, March 6th, 2019.
Commissioner Perneto.
I second that motion.
And then I guess I will ask Richard if that date is something that can be done.
I would actually prefer to have a little more time.
Because one thing, just to -- we will re-notice this, and so I want to make sure that we vetted
enough internally along with legal, and then whatever we come up with, we're able to notice
it properly.
I do know the meetings in March right now are pretty heavy with agenda items.
I'd like to move to amend my motion to date certain of April 9th, 2019.
April 9th, I think that's a Tuesday.
April 3rd, 2019.
April 3rd.
Development code, DDC update.
Or further.
Indefinitely.
Yeah, definitely.
We'll bring it back when we're ready.
We do have, like Richard said, there's a lot of stuff going on.
I'd like to amend my motion to table the discussion to date uncertain -- or to indefinitely.
Jerry, don't kill me.
I will second that.
Okay.
We have a first and a second to table indefinitely.
I know there's some discussion.
I'm going to ask Jerry to speak, because he's been wanting to say a few words, and then
we can entertain more.
Certainly if the commission is going to give any direction to staff, I want to make a few
comments from a legal perspective before you give feedback, because if I don't, Ron's going
to tell me you already gave him feedback, he doesn't want to listen to me.
But the first thing I wanted to point out is that, as you do give consideration to this,
try to avoid the temptation of assuming that SROs or rent by the bedroom is bad per se,
if we do get any kind of a challenge of that.
We're going to have to articulate zoning-based reasons why we're regulating these, and it's
going to have to be something in terms of traffic or something along those lines that
we're going to have to justify from a zoning perspective.
Similarly with SUPs, I want to make sure that we're sensitive to the idea that SUPs, the
intent is not to impede development with an SUP, the intent with the SUP is that if you
allow something subject to an SUP, that means it's allowed use, and the SUP is only there
to just look at the way in which you are implementing it.
Are you allowing enough traffic access?
Are you allowing enough protections in terms of access from the streets or what have you?
Typically these are traffic type of situations, so be careful not to use SUPs as an impediment
to development.
Probably my biggest concern is on the definition of dormitories.
This is something that I know I've brought up to staff before, and I think the council
was a little bit reluctant on it.
I was actually proposing that to have the definition be that it would be provided for
consideration rather than for rent, and I know that's not a term that's typically used
and that's one of the problems with dealing with the legal world is that sometimes legal
words have meaning and they mean something for a reason.
It's not that I love legalese, it's that if being someone who has prosecuted before, if
we say for rent in this definition, that just means the prosecutor has to prove the existence
of a lease and that the terms of the lease have that in there when the prosecution doesn't
have any right of discovery from the defendant.
I don't think that that's, trying to understand where the commission and the council is wanting
to go with this, I don't think you necessarily care if it's a lease agreement, it could be
a license.
It could be something where you permit someone to live somewhere, but they pay something,
or maybe it's in-kind services, you let me live there and I'll mow your yard for you.
If you require it to be for rent, that just creates a proof issue that impedes our ability
to enforce.
Please give consideration to the idea of leaving more, kind of like what you have with boarding
house, where you have the dissolver for consideration.
What is a consideration?
It doesn't have to be cash, it could be, again, I'll mow your yards, I'll be your maintenance
man if you let me live there.
And then finally, I think the point was made up about boarding houses being a separate
category, and I think one of the reasons for that is to differentiate them from single-family
homes.
And I think the idea is that with single-family homes, you rely upon the definition of family,
which talks about the number of unrelated persons that can live on site.
With a boarding house, family is not an issue.
The number of unrelated persons is not an issue.
That's why you have a different standard.
Just to answer that question, I wanted to provide that level of explanation.
As I indicated earlier, dormitories were something I came up with just because trying to describe
the living arrangement.
What word we use to describe it is largely immaterial.
But the concept with a dormitory is that it's a bunch of grown people that are living together.
They may all have cars, they may have a lot of traffic impacts, they're all independently
minded.
They're not part of a family.
They're people, and having that kind of relationship where you have a bunch of grown adults living
together and all being independently minded, that can create some impacts that are different
from, you know, situations with a single-family home or multi-family or what have you.
So just in short, those were some considerations that I wanted to bring to the commission's
attention with hopes that, you know, perhaps those might guide some of the recommendations
going forward.
Thank you, Chair.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
A couple of recommendations to staff.
In light of what Jerry said, I think that we need to address the high-density areas
at the same time as we address single-family and duplex areas with this.
Primarily that is, I think there's some ulterior motives that I've already mentioned that's
on the record already, but in the form of zoning issues, in all instances, the creation
of a single-room occupancy-style leasing method creates a traffic and parking issue that needs
to be discussed.
That ruins the integrity of the single-family areas, for sure, but also congests and clogs
up some of the already high-dense areas that are in the downtown areas or areas around
the university that are right next to single-family areas.
So I think that we need to address them at the same time.
I hate to go through and say that on a single-family side, I think this still coincides with zoning
and planning use, Jerry, but I hate to say that a single-family area, we need to have
regulations and restrictions on private property owners and what they can do on their private
property, but I think in this instance, by not regulating and having some sort of rules
in force where we can make sure that traffic and parking and whatnot can be regulated correctly,
we're allowing single-family residential owners, private property owners, to negatively affect
the value and the quality of life of other private property owners surrounding them.
And so I think it's important that we address this all at one time with essentially one
simple common thread that can be used.
I'd rather not have us be disjointed and say that just for these high-density areas, we
want to have this mindset, and for these low-density residential areas, we have a different mindset.
I think it'd be much more important if we have a common thread mindset across the entire
city with what we want, and I think that we could agree that development of new SRO areas
are fine in areas where it's not a conversion and it's not in existing neighborhoods.
So I'd like that to come back and be seen before us.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
So we're clear here when we're talking about single-family, we're just talking about those
six zones you put up on the board, correct?
We're not talking about NR1, NR2, NR3, NR4.
Those SROs have been kind of forbidden there, and that's what kind of surprises me that
she lived in one over in an NR3 district, I believe.
Am I correct?
Well, just as I'm hearing the recommendations, if we expand this study to be more comprehensive
and identify and use our single-family duplexes, it's got to expand, the zoning district's
got to expand, and we've got to look at every zoning district from this point forward.
Well, I would think that we just simply wouldn't allow it in those four single-family districts,
period.
There would be no need for an SUP because SROs wouldn't be allowed there.
That's something we'd have to look into.
We haven't really studied the single-family duplexes component, and just for, again, as
for your consideration, we know that there's a lot of those around town, and if we're going
to move forward with some-- And they're not in violation?
Recommendations.
Of current codes?
Anyone moving forward that wants to do this, if it's a specific use permit, you're going
to have a lot of these types, and if that's the idea is to prevent them, then true, but--
Okay, but correct me if I'm wrong, Ron, I mean, isn't it currently a violation to put
an SRO?
No.
If they have four unrelated persons, they're legally allowed to rent.
Okay, and that is an area we need to look at.
I can see the issue with the six zones you put up there, they're there by right, but
I didn't think they'd be allowed in-- So if we move this into single-family duplexes,
then you're going to affect that type of development, or that type of rental option, whatever you
want to call it, for those property owners that have homes that want to lease to four
unrelated persons.
Okay, the other thing I guess I wanted to mention, I'm a little reluctant to make this
data uncertain.
I mean, we're trying to get the Denton development code done soon, and if we put this thing in--
and this is a definition, this is an area we need to address and needs to be in the
new code, so if we make this indefinite, are we going to be cutting ourselves off at the
knees for trying to get this code written without this definition in there?
The code will move forward, and this would be something that we'd have to address--
Later.
Separately.
Yeah.
Unless we bring it forward with it, and that can be part of the discussion, but I don't
see that happening.
Okay.
Thanks.
Richard, did you want to--
What I was going to say is, let us continue to dig into this a little bit more, particularly
as we look at the single family and duplex issue, again, the definition as it was proposed
only applied if it was three or more units, so let us just dig into it a little more.
As we start to prepare information, I think we can easily provide that to you even in
a work session setting.
We are going to have DDC update as a discussion item.
This falls right within it, so I wouldn't think that it would-- I mean, Jared, maybe
I'm correct if I'm wrong, but I don't think it would preclude us from discussing that
in the terms of the overall DDC update, which I think is on the next subsequent agendas.
Three agendas here.
Thank you, Richard.
Okay, I'll just say a couple words and there's a couple more commissioners.
I don't really want to postpone this indefinitely either, but I don't see at this point that
we have much of a choice with where this discussion went.
For me, I think we've got-- we're kind of combining two separate things.
I think an SRO is a single room occupancy, rent by the bedroom.
That's really what it is, and it can be a single family house, it could be a duplex,
it could be a 500-unit building, but that's what an SRO is.
I think a lot of people think SRO, they think massive density buildings.
So for me, I think that's where we might have been trying to go to with this definition,
but I think we desperately need a definition for these high-density, purpose-built student
housing complexes.
We need that.
We need to be able to regulate where we want to put them.
That's one fold of this discussion, in my opinion.
Then there's the whole SRO discussion to be had.
Do we want them in the city?
How do we regulate it?
What are the regulations for that?
I think these are two separate discussions.
I don't know going forward as a staff, that'll be up to you of how you want to chop things
up, but to me, we need a high-density definition that's a hot button issue in this community.
It's what gets people ired up, because these massive complexes with hundreds and hundreds
of students come in to these existing neighborhoods, and we can't regulate them with the way we
have our code written right now.
I think that absolutely has got to be done, and we haven't done it.
Then the discussion is another discussion to be had about renting bedrooms, whether that
be single-family, a three-plex, a tri-plex, whatever.
That's another issue.
On related family members, however, we need to regulate that.
I think that's a separate issue to what this discussion started as.
Chair, if I can clarify, are we saying that those are two different discussions, but during
our work session, future work session, we want to bring all that together?
Well, they're certainly related, so I mean, I would defer to you guys about what needs
to happen first and what, but I mean.
I just want to make sure I understand what we're preparing for, and we'll definitely
regroup and come up with a strategy, but I didn't want to miss anything.
Commissioner Newpreneta.
My original point was to remove the height, but based on what Vice Chair Ellis has said,
in this, we have two different types of structures that are bound together by a rental agreement
type, so I think maybe the solution is to come back with basically both, one that addresses
the single-family residence and one that addresses that type of unit.
That way, you could have the height restriction, but we could also put these in.
I think we would have to move to counsel both things concurrently to avoid a situation where
people might take advantage of a gap of time, but that would probably be my recommendation.
Probably would be easier to present two different options, or basically two different cases
that we approve concurrently.
Commissioner Sanchez.
We started with a conversation of student housing, and now we're finding out that these
actually, people are changing using the same plan that was developed for student housing
so they can make more money.
I think what we need to do is concentrate on student housing, because that's what we
started with, and figure out that, and then move on to what's happening, why these people
that are changing regular residence into the same pattern, the same model that they're
using on student housing, we need to find out what's going on with those.
Our whole discussion was, first, student housing.
I think we need to stick with that and work that out completely, because to me, student
housing also has location, and just to say we're going to do an SRO in Timbuktu, for
the fact that I can make more money, but it's not for students, then are you breaking the
law based on how many people you have in there?
We need to look at, just concentrate on SROs first, and fix that, and location, and how
many students, if you're calling that you're going to create student housing, what percentage
of those people living there are students?
You have to have 80% or 90% of those people living there to call it student housing.
If you call it an SRO, and everybody's just working, and no students, then you're not
an SRO.
I think what has happened is people figured out how to make more money, and are using
that model to make it, but we need to define it, and say this is what a student housing
is.
It's 90%, 100% students, not working people.
If that's all you're doing, then you have a different model that you have to follow.
Okay, I don't see any other discussion, so we do have a motion on the table to table
this indefinitely, and I will call for a vote on the board.
Motion passes 5-2-1.
That leads us to our final item.
That's our matrix, and Richard, I'll let you bring up our matrix.
Just wanted to touch on a couple of the items on the matrix.
At our next meeting on 2/20, we will have representatives from DSID to talk about their
student generation rates and capacity, and how they determine that.
I believe the consultant that assists them with that will also be in attendance to give
that presentation on March 6th regarding the roundabout in the special study areas.
I spoke to Preetam earlier today about that item, and so he will be here on the 6th.
We'll probably want to start that meeting also a little bit earlier, so it'll be a number
of items discussed as part of that, one being obviously the roundabouts, but I also want
to have him give an update on the study that was completed, the special area study for
the Sherman Avenue or Sherman Road area, as well as both Ryan Road and Hickory Creek.
That way we're all in the loop as these projects progress.
The Master Thoroughfare Mobility Plan, that is still in the works, so I don't have a
specific date as to when, but I do know it will be in the very near future as they get
that RFP out and begin that selection.
Just wanted to mention also, while not on the matrix, City Council did approve the resolution
last night regarding the developer engagement policy, so it is in effect.
What we will do is I'll make sure everyone gets a copy of that signed resolution.
Nothing changed from what the commission recommended, and just wanted to update on a couple projects.
We did deny two applications last night, one being the Windsor Avenue Apartments.
That was denied, as well as the rezoning for the lakeside, if you recall.
That was in front of you.
The lakeside rezoning.
I also wanted to give you an update briefly, I don't want to get into the conversation
on the project, just want to let you know what's on the horizon.
The Agave Ranch most likely will be brought back.
They're looking at amending their application, potentially reducing, if they do ultimately
amend it and reduce the density, it will be brought back in front of the commission for
consideration.
They are holding some meetings with the neighbors, so just wanted to keep everyone apprised of
where that's at.
Anybody need to add anything to the matrix?
Just real quick, so the next meeting's on the 20th, on the 13th, there's a special
call session regarding the DDC update with Clarion.
So that is okay.
Commissioner Sanchez.
I just, on the matrix, I was wondering if we could add something on, when we were talking
about the special areas, I wanted, when they talked about the buffer stream size management
zones, or they defined it fair or whatever, but when they talk about uplands, they never
define what condition it is.
I'd like to talk a little bit or discuss that a little bit, and also as to how we can improve
it to make it, if there's any kind of management that we can bring into that and say if it's
in fair condition or in good condition, how do we maintain that?
Okay.
We'll do, what I'll try to do is, let me talk to Deborah to see when I can have something
brought in front of you.
We will be bringing the conservation and landscape code for formal consideration on the 20th.
I'll see if she can at least maybe get something, even beforehand, just to, where their thoughts
are on it.
Then I'll just add one comment.
I know back in the day we used to have someone at our meetings from engineering, namely traffic.
I don't know when that ended or if that can be done or, I just thought I'd throw that
out there.
Sometimes we have so many questions and it would be nice if we could call them down like
we used to be able to call them down and get a quick update.
Just because it's so relevant when we've got these public hearings, when they're right
in front of us and they've got these concerns and we can quickly get to an update.
I don't know when that decision was made, and I don't know if it can be fixed, because
I don't know what staff is like now, but I just thought I'd throw that out there for
our thought.
I don't have an answer.
Okay.
I'll get one.
Yeah, I'd appreciate that.
We just always had one in attendance as part of staff.
It was helpful a lot, a lot of the time, in work session and in regular session.
I don't see anything else, so thank you everybody.
With that, I will close our meeting at 9.11.
Thank you.