Apr 23, 2019 City Council on 2019-04-23 2:00 PM

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, April the 23rd, 2019. It is 2.01 p.m. We do have a quorum so I will now open the meeting. We'll start out with our -- before we start with our work session reports, I'd like the city secretary to introduce our new addition -- if you could go to the podium, too, so people can hear you. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Rosa Rios and I am your city secretary. I wanted to introduce Zolina Parker. She is our new deputy city secretary and comes to us from the city of Watauga with excellent skills and knowledge and had it been up to me, she would have started the same day I did. I want to welcome you. She is a great asset to the city. And she goes by Z, I believe is what she told me. All right. Yes. All right. Thank you and welcome. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you, Rosa. All right. We'll go on to our work session citizen comments on consent agenda items. I don't see any blue cards. Motion for clarification on agenda items listed on the agenda. Yes. Councilmember Armature. I would like to pull to have a discussion on item B and C. There's a big price tag with both of those items. And although I know it's just a notice of intention to issue, I think it would be good for the public to air that out in public. Okay. Do you want a staff presentation now and then it still stay on the consent agenda or do you want it pulled for items for individual consideration in a separate vote? The latter. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Councilmember Briggs. Yes. So on item G on the air conditioning and maintenance, so I'm curious how often the units are replaced and if they're replaced with energy efficient ones each time. Anybody speak to that? I know you had a I think you had a question is yours relating to that. You're gonna pull it. Okay. He's gonna. Yeah. Let me. Councilmember Huss with you had a. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna pull it for full presentation this evening. Okay. So we'll have somebody there. All right. Okay. So we've got B, C and G so far. Okay. Councilmember. Oh, you had one more. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, it was just a question on the public hearing. Item B has been postponed indefinitely and I just wanted to know if there was a reason or if somebody could tell us why this is appropriate time or anybody here that can answer that. Okay. All right. We may, we may come back to that. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah. I'd like to pull item J just for a brief presentation on the bidding process and on any changes anticipating the bidding process based on the fact that there were only two bids so that the public can understand how that comes about. And also on item A, I'd like to pull that for a separate vote, it involves a required permit for UNT which is one of the definitions of pending matter so I want the opportunity to recuse. Yes. Councilmember Marger. Thank you. Actually, one more. Item H, I would just like an explanation right now about Grand Prairie. I couldn't exactly figure out from the backup what that was about. So just, just having an explanation. Hello, Cassie Ogden, Director of Procurement and Compliance. So the item with Grand Prairie is an interlocal agreement where we can piggyback their contracts. We have two that we've identified that we would like to piggyback already but future contracts we can also piggyback and gain economies of scale. Yes, go ahead. And can you share which contracts those two are? Sure. One is for pavement leveling services for the streets department and the other one is pavement marking services for our traffic operations. Okay, cool. So we would share the ideas sharing the services? Yes. So it's already gone through a competitive procurement process and we would then use their pricing and their contracts to have those services performed here. Excellent. Thanks. Okay. Anybody else? Todd, you had an answer to somebody's question? Okay. Just as a clarification, item J was not a bid item. That was a contract with a consultant. So just for clarification on what exactly is requested. I didn't mean item J. Let me go look, there's the item that has two bidders. Was that the AC one? No. Okay. You know what? Yeah, that's 4A. My mistake. Thank you. Okay. I did have a question on item J which I'll be happy to hear an explanation on which is just why this amount was unanticipated. Sure. So we actually bid two pipe materials, two different type of materials which is a fairly common method when you're trying to get competitive pricing. So when you have one pipe material only that you bid, the likelihood that prices do get inflated because of that material is a little bit greater whereas if I can add an alternate pipe material, it helps keep both pipe material prices fairly competitive. The issue that we're running into is historically that the steel pipe material has not been the lowest cost item. It has been here more recently. So for the size of pipe and then the material itself, staff that we currently have in the inspections department does not have that kind of experience. So this company does. They have inspectors who understand this method of material. They understand the construction that goes with it. This would give us the ability to both train our internal staff on how to handle this pipe, the size of material, the types of construction methodologies that go with it. This contract is also hourly not to exceed. So if we don't need the entire contract, we can get staff up to speed. We don't have to go through the entire contract cost. Does that answer your question? It does, if I can ask a bit of a follow-up. So the intention is ultimately to reduce our costs. Correct. And is it your point of view that with the amount of the contract that you would expect to use, that we would still end up in the plus column? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions on -- there was a -- I think Councilmember Briggs had a question about the item. Which one was it, the public hearing? 3B has been postponed indefinitely. And yes, to say indefinitely, we will be bringing that item back just as soon as we can. There were some questions as far as some of the backup material. So legal had some questions for staff. And so we just needed to -- we didn't want to go to a date certain. So we just went indefinitely. So it will be soon. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Items for clarification, agenda items. No, if not, we'll move on to 3A, receive report, hold discussion, provide staff direction regarding City Council priorities and the process to establish those priorities for upcoming work session report topics. There we go. They weren't too excited about this one. Mayor and Council, Ryan Adams, Public Affairs, and I'm here to walk you through the first part of your strategy session. Just a little bit of background. As you recall, back on August 25th, 2018, Council had a planning retreat, and in that planning retreat, the Council identified key priorities and discussed developing a process going forward on how to address work session items and bring those topics forward. Just as a reminder, those key priorities were very large projects, Denton Development Code being one, Downtown Master Plan, the potential for a new bond program, which actually we're presenting on today. From that meeting, we determined to engage in strategy sessions about every two months. The feedback we've received so far on these strategy sessions was to really work to align all these work session topics with those August 25th priorities. Council has given feedback to staff that they are open to receiving more information through informal staff reports as opposed to work sessions, and that there's a desire for staff assistant in addressing the length of Council meetings. We've also received feedback to continue surveying the Council to prioritize items and using those surveys, frankly, as a tool to help you strategize and prioritize what work session items need to come forward and when. Our recommendations to staff are to continue this process that we've started, where we send the survey out, deliver those results to Council so they can discuss and prioritize these items, and our recommendation is to take the five highest priority items and actually put those into our work session matrix for schedule. So our most recent strategy session was back on March 4th. We came out of there with seven priorities to schedule, seven meeting topics. All but one have been scheduled, I'll note that the one for April 23rd, we're not having that today, that actually got moved to a different date, but all but one have been scheduled, so bring centers as a date to be determined. Let me know if I'm going too fast. And this is, you've received this as an attachment to the agenda item, but this is essentially what our planning matrix looks like, where the highlighted portions are the top priorities from that March 4th meeting. And this is kind of a snapshot in time, this moves, we move items around, move work session topics around on at least a weekly basis, sometimes daily, sometimes hourly. But our goal is to bring you the critical topics sooner and make sure that we are as best to our ability addressing the things that are important to you as a Council body. So we did send out a survey for this meeting today, this strategy session, that went out on April 12th, and we asked Council to rank items as having high interest, your interest in the item, high interest, low interest, or no interest. And we were sure to include the previous items that perhaps we looked at in previous strategy sessions that did not get prioritized, maybe they weren't as great a priority then but would be now. And we provided those results to Council, we received six responses from the Council. And here are our highest priorities from that survey. I know you may or may not be able to read this right here, but we had two items that scored the highest, the impact fee revenue use and an update from Atmos Energy. And the next eight items were all ranked with a score of 15. And after that, the scores got progressively lower. We noticed, would you like me to stay on this slide for a little bit? Yeah, yeah. Let's try to get through at least a couple of these and then we'll come back and answer questions. Yes, sir. We noticed that a lot of the items had to do with gas wells. So staff's recommendation to Council that it might be more efficient to package all these different topics into one work session, kind of a gas well topic broadly, but we can address at least five different topics that were in your survey that went out to you under one work session item and kind of approach them holistically. If Council wants to move forward with that option where we would schedule a separate luncheon just on gas wells, we would then have the ability to bring in some of those items that were scored lower than 15, just lower, and bring those into the mix and work on getting them scheduled. Some of those were, if you look at the last three, a municipal rental inspection program, financial risk disclosure for a manufacturer at home, and a net revenue report for economic development incentives. Okay. Let's go ahead and go with some questions. We'll go through them. Council Member Williams. Yeah, you know, I should have mentioned this before the meeting, but I think in a previous discussion like this, we concluded that it didn't make sense to add points for no interest. I don't think it changes much, but I think it makes more sense if no interest just doesn't add a point. So if you agreed with that, it knocks your 16s down to 15, it knocks some of your 15s down to 14. I think the rank order stays the same. Council Member Ritz. I'm really glad that you brought that up, because I was going through the survey and looking through it and noticed there were not just gas wells, but other items that looked like they could be grouped up. So there were five items with the gas wells, and my question was going to be, why can't we just have one item where we could look at all of those? There is one on the gas wells that I wanted to know, the gas well fund, sometimes that comes up in budget presentations as well. So I just wanted to make sure that that was still going to be in a budget presentation. But I am in favor of adding all of these together and grouping them together, and that would be a high priority for me. Yes, Council Member Ritter. I had a question, actually less for you than probably for the person who ever recommended the net revenue report on economic development incentives, or actually probably equally both for you and whoever recommended it. So I agree that's a really important topic. I would love to see that. I'm wondering, I guess this is the part that would be for you, you're the city manager. Since that's a topic that would come up at budget time, what is, and I know you can't say for sure, but what is roughly the time when the economic development department would come before us next? Probably in July. In July. Yes. You know, whoever suggested it, and I could look that up, but whoever suggested it, they might consider waiting until July for that, unless there's some reason not to. Yeah, I mean, that would flow right into the budget, so it would sort of seem redundant to spend. I mean, work session real estate is very scarce, so if we're able to combine these like we did with the five gas, which I am in favor of that as well, then that helps, because that's just a natural outflow of the budget discussion. So I'm okay with that. Council Member Briggs? Well, yeah, to piggyback on that, I said that I went through some of these, and some of them seems like there's a lot that we could talk about here today and move away from this list so that it doesn't look so daunting. And I think that as we just keep, there's a lot on here that we should go through. And so I'm hoping that we can have a larger discussion about each of these items so that we can clean it up a little bit. Help me understand what you mean by that. Okay, so in a regular council committee, we have staff and assistant city managers who go through our matrix, and they clean it up. They say, well, these two can go together, or this one we've already done, let's get it out of here. This one's coming up in a work session. We don't need to hear it in committee. And this has not been done with this list. And so I feel like it should be a process by which we do that so that it looks more manageable and it -- each item we can go through here in this meeting and talk about. I guess in your example that you just mentioned, you said staff does that in your other committees. So what's the objection if we let -- because that's a pretty broad discussion. I mean, that's a long discussion on this. So what would be -- what I would recommend is that we ask staff to do the very same thing that you just mentioned, and that is go through and sort of clean it a little bit, scrub it a little bit, and maybe give us an ISR in the next week or two, and then if we need to bring it back to -- if we have some really major disagreements with that. But I think -- I mean, we can have the discussion today, but I don't know if I was prepared necessarily to have that discussion because you're talking about deciding what stays on the matrix and what's not. If staff typically does that first, I would like to see that, and then if we sort of don't agree with that, then we can have that discussion. It seems like that would be more efficient use of the time, but that's just my thoughts. Those are just my thoughts. Go ahead. >> All right. Well, again, yes. So there's not a guiding document saying -- and I've talked about this before -- saying that we -- anything about this is a new process. So we don't really know how we go about these things, and I think in past meetings, some council members have asked staff to do that, to go through, and it hadn't really been done except for the tree ordinance, I think, has been taken off. And so I just wanted to maybe get consensus on the process, saying, sure, let's let them do that. At least somebody needs to do it if it's not counseled. >> Ms. Seidman, do you have a comment on that? >> I have no problem doing that. I think where we just need to take a look at -- there could be topics that are related where some score at the bottom and where there's very little interest in hearing something, and it's just a matter -- if you want us to go through and say, here, how we could potentially combine workshops, respond to that, we're happy to do that for you. You know, I mean, we've been a little hesitant to go too far here because there's been at least two or three discussions over the last six months about removing some of the lower priority ones off the list, and counsel has been very defensive about not doing that. So if this is what you would like us to do and possibly propose ways of combining, we're happy to do that for you. >> Okay. Councilmember Meltzer, did you have a comment? >> Well, I was just turning over in my mind that -- whether to bring up this one item that -- I don't remember who introduced it, but it was for kind of a short-term thing when federal employees were being furloughed, and that's not the case anymore. So I think that's not controversial to let that go. >> Yes. >> Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not timely. It's not -- it's moot. I mean, that's how I would call it. Yes, you brought it up. I remember that. Yes. Yeah, so -- yes, go ahead. >> Yeah, so I wanted to comment on that and another thing. So yes, excuse me, I was the one who brought that up, and I was going to suggest today actually that we kind of -- that we remove that. I think I ranked it high priority because I thought it's -- you know, I wanted to reserve that opportunity for when it comes up -- or I shouldn't say when it comes up again. If there's a situation like that again, you know, I wanted it to be kind of on record that I had ranked it high priority. That may -- or may not have been, you know, a wise decision, but that's why I ranked it high priority. So I just wanted to note that. And I wanted to make the suggestion, one of -- another one of my suggestions on here, municipal IDs, something I feel really strongly about that affects our homeless population, I'm fine with, you know, since it hasn't gotten the votes on council, with that being, you know, transferred over to either the shelter committee, the, you know, homeless leadership team, you know, one of our groups that deals with these kinds of issues, whatever city manager or community development thinks most appropriate. So I'm fine taking that off the list as long as I know it will have a home to be -- a place to be considered somewhere. I know we've got a good staff report on that. >> Councilmember? >> Yes. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Councilmember Houspeth? >> Yes. >> Thank you. Well, before -- here's my thought, and hopefully there's consensus for that. I'd ask -- because I did the same thing. So if you look at the exhibit titled -- what is it? Summary -- the summary there, summary of other requests, it has -- basically it has a title of what the request is, it has a definition, and it has who did it, or who asked for it. And so before we ask staff to go consolidate people's ideas, I would ask that individuals -- I did it this weekend. You look at it and you decide if there's things that aren't pertinent and ask that it be removed. And then we start afresh from there. So if everyone would take a look at your name and say, do I want that or not, and then remove that, staff has some on there, they can do that on their own. But before I ask them to kind of cross over into individual councilmember's thoughts, I would ask that each councilmember clean house initially, and then they can start from there to combine things. But that at least saves them from having to interpret what each individual kind of had in mind. And so that -- you're looking at exhibit three, I believe? >> Yes, sir. >> And is that the only -- I mean, we've got a combined report, combined survey results on exhibit four, well, one of 37. What? Okay. I agree. I think that's a good exercise to really start to help give staff some direction, and therefore we won't have them second guessing. I think that's a good -- I think that's a good option. Yes, councilmember Briggs. >> So I think I have five on there. The only two that are on my high priority list that have my name by them are municipal broadband and commercial food diversion. >> Okay. And the others are -- okay. So what you're saying is you want -- >> Those two. These two remain. And the other two that I requested to -- the other three can go. >> Okay. All right. Okay. >> And we can send an e-mail to council just as a reminder to give you time to actually look through these items and make your decisions on them. >> Okay. So you've identified some. Anybody else? Yes, councilmember Marmotor. >> I just wanted to mention, I just noticed just now that the item in that same list, number 34, but the Tenants Advisory Committee, I know that I had recommended, councilmember Marmotor, name is on here. I know I had recommended it. Maybe you had two or maybe that was a typo. >> I got one that my name is on that I don't think I did. So maybe we switched them. I don't know. >> If there's an e-mail out, if there are any corrections, we can make sure we address it as well. >> Of course. Yeah. >> We'll make sure we get it right. >> And I didn't notice that then because I was just -- anyway, but I just noticed that now. I wanted to mention it. Thank you. >> Gotcha. Well, mine is pretty easy. I've got only one. And I don't remember it as with councilmember Briggs about back-end parking. I don't need to have any conversation about back-end parking on this item. >> Now if we allowed 140 characters, is your name on it? Because actually -- >> Well, it says lot slash Briggs, back-end parking on Hickory. >> Yeah. I definitely -- >> Because I don't have any on here. So -- >> You're good. I definitely ask for that. I appreciate 140 characters or something to say more about it without deliberating here because my point of view on it has not yet been discussed. >> Okay. So let's do that exercise and try to get those back to staff by the end of the week. And that way it will give them sort of a jump start. Is that okay? >> Yeah. We'll send out the survey as well as the ISR list. I mean, I think I sent you a recent report that we've done like 128 ISRs. So it would be nice to know if that satisfied your concerns, let us know. And once we have those items removed, I'll talk to the City Attorney about if there's any formal action needed on that. And we'll bring it back to you with some proposed ways to move forward. >> Okay. Great. All right. Yes, Council Member Briggs. >> And just on that, because I had some other questions, on fireside, because that project is already -- already almost, I mean, done, the traffic, the neighborhood meetings have happened. They're about to start building. So I see it's a high priority. Can I just ask Council, like, what left to discuss? Is there on that for people? >> Yeah. >> I'm just curious, because it was for me, I thought it's already -- there's not really much else we could do here unless it's just about -- I'm just curious what the issue is on fireside. >> What you're saying is take it off? >> Well -- >> Yeah. >> But I think it was voted high priority. So I'm just wondering what -- >> Right. So that was -- fireside park development ended up number four on this list. >> Yeah. Because what you're saying, it's moved. I mean, it's already started. It's -- they had the neighborhood meetings. They're fixing to start construction. So what would we be discussing that would alter any of that going forward? >> And engineering and traffic had a meeting with the neighborhood. We've talked about what we're going to do there already. So -- >> Yeah, and if -- >> Oh, that's the -- >> Yeah, if Council wants an overview of the city engineer kind of with the traffic plan, that's fine. It really was the impetus for the public meeting change in the DDC. So -- >> Yeah. >> Yeah, we're happy to come back and give you an update on the traffic plan. Or I can just simply ask Todd to do that in an ISR. So it's your call. >> I just wasn't -- I was just curious what the issue was still. >> Yes. And I wasn't aware of that. I would be happy with an ISR. And then if something comes out of that ISR that we think there's cause for future discussion, then someone can request that again. I for one am content with that on an ISR. >> Yeah, I'm fine with that too. >> We kind of covered this last slide to a certain degree, but -- so we'll make those changes. We'll send that e-mail out to Council and revise and put that in a report to Council how we would repackage, taking out some of these items, repackaging some others. Wanted to mention that staff would like, if Council wants to give us direction on presentations from private vendors. This is something that if it's a will of the Council, we can accomplish. But there are going to be a lot of private vendors who would love to present to the Council. And that would take an already pretty maxed out schedule and make scheduling items a little bit more difficult. >> Let's give a little background on that. I think you and I talked about that, Council Member Hussbett, that there's an agenda item for zero energy homes, I think. >> Yes, sir. >> And I wasn't aware until probably a couple weeks ago. I thought it was just more of a conceptual kind of presentation on how does that happen. Here's somebody from maybe the university or something, apparently it's a private corporation or a for-profit entity that would be giving that presentation. So did you want to -- because I think you're the one that asked for it. >> Yeah. No, and it's -- I think we have it on the schedule, finally. But I think you -- I did not look at it until we talked from that lens. And for me, I absolutely understand the concern of having a private entity. But I also think if someone needed a bulleted list of the things that I think are truly unique to that entity and how it lines up with our goals of being more green in our approach, then I think that to me is where I separate the two. If it's a stick built house, the same acne brick, same plumbing, same everything, I think that then becomes problematic. But I think there's some unique characteristics when you're talking about a Tesla battery wall in each home that kind of separate it from when we're talking about what can batteries do. Well, here's someone that's working with it daily and monitoring that process. And so that's kind of how I look at it. I don't know how to create a bright line for that. I think that's just a test and the council either supports it or not. And then I guess to the other side of that, I would say it's -- to me, it's no different than them signing up to speak for five minutes at a city council session. I mean, anyone can do that. And so they could come in and speak out. Well, I hear that. I think -- I think you have a good idea in that are there some concepts and some technologies that are available to people as far as in home building to help reduce their costs? I know that University of North Texas has a zero emission beta test home that they do. It's a research. It's a research home. So I think they could be a good resource. My only concern is I don't want to have either work sessions or, quite frankly, citizen reports become commercials. And I will be pretty stringent upon that because I don't think that's the place for these type of reports. I mean, they can certainly -- because then it's how are we giving people different things. So I'm very cautious about it. Not totally foreclosed on it. I'm just cautious because I want to make sure that we safeguard that. Councilmember Armitage. So I myself am strongly opposed to presentations from private vendors being part of a council work session or posted on the agenda. I'm okay with anybody doing a citizen report on anything as long as I stick to their time. I want, you know, anything that involves private vendors -- of course, we as a city do business with private vendors all the time -- gets filtered somehow through staff, either through the RFP process or some other means. And if a private vendor is interested in a certain topic, of course, they can come. If there's only one, you know, vendor for -- or one affected party or even two or three for whatever issue is being presented by staff to council, then those interested parties could be present. And then if anyone on council had questions for them, you know, they could ask the mayor, you know, is this appropriate to ask questions for this person who happens to be here? So I'm -- I just wanted to state for the record that I'm opposed to that. And I prefer for it to -- anything to get filtered through staff. I thought that, you know, I had concerns about when the coal hunter ranch was taking such a long time to do that presentation, I'm not opposed to having them speak, but actually giving a big PowerPoint and all that, that for me kind of walks the line. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I don't -- I guess I don't understand the opposition. I really don't -- because for example, if we had a -- we have the solid waste consultants come up and they give a presentation on what conclusions they've drawn. And then they'll say, well, the next step would be to hire us again to do phase two of that study. That quote-unquote is an advertisement for us to retain them again, to work with them again in a different capacity, right? And so if you're saying there are no -- we want none of that, I just don't understand where you draw the bright line. I think it's absolutely fair to say maybe we go back to this, where if four people are okay with it, then that's fine. But that to me is the only thing that -- I mean, because then you get into just personal preference and I don't know how you quantify that, you know, because everyone -- every private entity that comes before us, I've not seen one that says, hey, this is it for us. This is where we get off. I just want to do this one project and be done with you. You know, it's normally like, hey, and we also do this or there's a future or whatever that is, you know. And so I think -- I don't know how you -- how do you separate knowledge, information from hire us again, we'd like to continue working with you. >> Because the second question -- the second statement you made is a question. We don't have to hire them. In the example that you gave of the consultant, we've engaged a consultant to perform a service for the city. That's different than coming and sharing something that they will therefore go out and sell to members of the community in a private transaction. That's sort of how I make that distinction. But it's just me. I mean, I don't -- I mean, I'm not -- yeah. >> If I may. >> Sure. >> I was -- I forget which -- whatever event it was. But there's a -- and it was really neat. There's a write-up of what an entity does for Denton at a trade show that they're then using to gain new business. So we're not -- you know, so to your -- >> Do you remember who that was? >> I don't. It was -- no. I have it. I can find it. But, yes, it's -- they have a blurb written up and they're printing it out and saying, hey, here's what we're doing for the city of Denton. We'd love to do that for you, too. And so I think, although I respect that, I think if all goes well here, some salesperson somewhere, if they're doing their job, will say, here's our successes and we may fall into that category. And then -- >> Right. And so I think that's where I answer that question. I think, again, it just goes -- and I don't begrudge it. It's not a bad thing. It's great. You know, hey, draw more attention to Denton. I think it's a fantastic city. So that's -- for me, I think it really is the intent and what you're looking to gain from it. And I think if that can be articulated and there's that individual and three others that are lockstep to say, hey, yeah, that's worth it, then make sense. >> Oh, yeah, no. That's how we operate here. >> But I think that's my -- I think that's the bright line test. I don't know otherwise, other than the conversation, I don't know how to filter it. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Meltzer and then Mayor Pro Tem. >> Councilmember Hutsworth raised a couple of points. On the idea of us being used as a reference, I personally have no issue with that. We're part of their resume. But I think we actually probably could make a request of those who are presenting their findings for us to say, you know, don't add the pitch for new business. And I think that's an understandable requirement and, you know, I think that is a correct sensitivity. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> I have an issue with private vendors as well, but I think what we can do on something like this particular one even is have our sustainability department get with the company and let it filter through so it's actually presented by our staff, and that prevents the opportunity to do that advertising. >> I think that's what Councilmember Armitage was sort of suggesting, and then they can be here and their staff, if the council has any questions, they're here as a resource to be able to answer those questions. >> Right. And there could be beyond just that one company that staff could reach out to other companies as well to get other ideas and say, you know, this is -- here's things that are being done throughout the country for sustainability and -- >> Yeah, no, I think the general topic, I think the issue is critically important. I think it's something that is -- would be very helpful to our community as far as some of those options, because, I mean, not many people are aware of that, quite frankly. Councilmember Briggs. >> Well, yes, I'm in favor of that as well, and it's not just for residential, but also for municipal and commercial buildings. So it might be a way where staff meets with them to see how we could implement those things as a city as well as it goes. And so it could be, you know, just a presentation of that sort as well. >> So Councilmember Husspeth, on your specific request, on the zero homes, do you have any objection to the process by which Mayor Pro Tem sort of articulated with them getting with our sustainability staff working together on a presentation, and then staff making the presentation? If you have questions that they could come up and answer them, do you have any objection to that? >> No, no, that's fine. >> Okay. All right. Great. All right. Fantastic. I don't know if we answered the question on there, but we found a way to -- yeah. We'll save that for another day. Yes. Councilmember Nelson. >> Yeah, on a similar vein, there's something like between 25 and 50 really worthy nonprofits that work in social service arena in Denton and we're a lucky community to have so many committed people, but I don't necessarily think it's the role of council work sessions to have pitches on those unless there are one of two circumstances. One is that we have an objective that's part of the city staff objective, and this is sort of a way that we might fulfill an objective, is to work with a particular nonprofit so they play a role, you know, but something like that, or if we have a policy that a certain amount of tax money goes generally to, you know, social services, in which case there ought to be kind of a vetting process, but I think it's a bit of sort of an unfair use of time to -- you know, every one of them could make a pitch that would show their valid, compelling, you know, merit of what they do that would make us feel we ought to support that. That might be true as individuals, but I don't think that's sort of how it fits in city government. >> Yes, councilmember Melzer. >> Just want to ask councilmember Melzer, can you think of an occasion when -- I can't think of an occasion when a nonprofit has been scheduled on an agenda to present at a work session or a meeting other than a scheduled citizen report, or if they were asked to come up and speak by council? >> Hasn't been scheduled yet, just one of the items. >> And that raises to me. I mean, councilmember, I know that you had asked for a work session on MHMR, and so when I saw some emails about -- of course, I don't have any problem with people coming up to the day on citizen reports, but I don't want that to become sort of de facto work session where people can come up and ask in a citizen report, and we engage them in sort of a question-and-answer dialogue that sort of has that same impact. Because to me, anybody that hasn't asked for money, that's the budget process. We've got a process in order to deal with that, and we have committees as well who are specifically designed to vet, especially those social services, through our health and community development and -- >> Human services. >> Community services, yes. Sorry. >> Human services. >> Human services. This is what happens when you get older. >> We've got a lot. >> So, yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, we want to hear from those organizations, but I think there's a process in which we can do that. Absolutely. Yes, councilmember? >> And just to add, I approve of following the, you know, current process and following the process we have on the books in those kinds of situations. I would be opposed to, you know, a work session in which it was scheduled and there was an attached presentation, you know, and it was part of the plan for any nonprofit, even one that I want the city to fund, you know, I still want those presentations filtered and given by staff, and if somebody from, you know, we had community market here recently, you know, people, council can ask them questions, but we have staff present it, I think that's kind of the key, but I don't want to be controlling, you know, who can and cannot speak at a scheduled citizen report. We have a process that says anyone can, you don't even have to live in Denton to do it, and procedure that says that council can ask them questions. >> Well, and I agree and I don't oppose it either, but if it becomes sort of used as a tool to bypass some of these other processes that we have in place, then that's something we'll have to discuss. I don't have any disagreement with you. Yes, councilmember? >> I think it's, you know, at risk of becoming a process because -- or possibly because it may not be well known what the actual outlet is, how should we be approached? What is the, you know, what is the way? So I think when people don't feel like they have any other way to approach us, they use that. >> Of course. If we make it clear that there is an objective council has and here's the process, you know, then people will do that. >> Yeah. Okay. Any other questions on this? Yes, councilmember Briggs, and then we'll wrap up this agenda item. >> Yeah. Before we go, because I did say in the email that I would give my high priorities in a public meeting, and so I just want to add them to the list, and I mentioned it already. It's the commercial food diversion, municipal broadband, the gas wells, and the outdoor music venue and noise ordinance. Those are the ones I'd like my -- and the rest are low priority. >> So I want to have the same conversation we had the last time we had this discussion. That is we have a process, a survey process that each councilmember besides yourself, a consensus of the council chose that process. So I'm not sure how your high priority figures into the -- to count because I don't think that that's -- first of all, it's outside the process, and I don't know -- and it gives you a chance to sort of see how everything's flushed out, and then to -- and I'm not sure how equitable that sounds. So I need to have a discussion about -- because if you're saying that you're just going to provide these every time at these meetings instead of doing the survey, we need to have a discussion about that because I don't think it's -- I don't think it's fair, and that's not what the council had decided, and if we want to decide something different, I'm okay with it. I'm perfectly okay with it. But then we're all going to sort of resort to that, and if we do, we're right back to where we are, which I'm okay with that as well. So go ahead. So if there's a resolution, an ordinance, something that is law saying that this is the way that we have to do it, and if I don't do it this way, then my voice isn't going to be heard, then that's one thing, but I haven't seen that, and no one has told me that this is the only way, and I just feel uncomfortable. I have uncomfortable feelings about the online survey, and that's me personally, and if my voice doesn't get heard because I don't participate in it, then that's fine, but we need to have a discussion, and I want to know how many items -- like if we get to five items on the survey, are we still taking the survey? Like what are the rules here? How many items is too much? Because I didn't have to take this survey for three and a half years in office, and so all of a sudden, I have to. This is -- and I appreciate that, and I think we've had different components of this discussion, especially when we sort of devised this procedure, so I'm going to take it a couple at a time, because you've got two different issues there. One is the survey itself, and the second one is that we don't have a resolution or something in place mandating that this process -- now, I don't feel necessarily we need that, because this council had a discussion, and that's how we sort of gave staff direction. We gave direction to staff. This is how we want to do it. So I'm a little curious as to why all of a sudden that when we give staff direction, if we don't have an ordinance or a resolution, somehow that means that it's not direction that we have to maintain until we change course, and I'm certainly open to changing course if we need to, and so I also -- you know, Mr. City Manager, if you want to weigh in at some point, but -- so I'm open to the discussion. I just -- to all of a sudden come in and just not have this discussion ahead of time to give more direction, like if we need a resolution for you, well, then this council can decide whether we want to reduce it to a resolution, and if we don't, then that's fine. If we do, that's fine, too. Go ahead. >> My understanding was that we needed this because there was too many items, and we needed to just get a handle on it. So how many is too many, and if we get down to a certain amount, does this process go away? Can this process go away, is my question. >> I think it's possible. If we could get down to 10 or 12 policy issues a quarter, I think that's very doable. Remember last summer what happened is we got an avalanche of ISR requests, workshop requests, in a matter of two months we had over 35 requests. In the first six months of this fiscal year we have done 128 ISRs. So we're on pace to go over 250 ISRs at this pace, and the question is which of these things we want -- and at the same time we had council members saying, look, we're starting at 11 o'clock in the morning and going until midnight, I can't even function the next day. It is completely your process. I think what is reasonable is to try to get that down to 12, 15 a quarter, and we can start at noon if the council is okay with that, but we can't sit here with lists going as high as 60, which it was at one point, and have confidence level. We can schedule these out when we're only meeting weekly. If this kind of discussion had taken place six months ago, we may not be here. This is the first time that people have been willing to say, hey, we're willing to take things off the list, go through a different committee, let staff combine them. I mean, I know that you've been an advocate of combining similar items, but this is the kind of discussion we have needed in order to get that paired down. I want to weigh in on what Councilmember Biggs said. I myself, obviously, I take the survey. I don't feel forced to take this survey, and I don't want to have it -- and I know you weren't suggesting that there should be, but I understand why you raised that possibility, why you mentioned it about having an ordinance to point out that you don't have to -- that each of us don't -- we don't have to fill out the survey. We choose to fill out the survey if we do, and if we don't want to fill out the survey, we don't have to fill it out. The point is that the survey is a tool used to meet a certain goal, which is to get these work session requests, to order them in a manageable way that feels as objective as possible and just, you know, I, for one, I don't feel unfairly treated or that Councilmember Biggs is getting, you know, unfair special treatment for being allowed to weigh in right now. You know, as a matter of fact, we all have the opportunity to weigh in now. We could count this as she's just marking everything abstain until, you know, the meeting. You can call it that, but I see what we have now is -- and I feel like it's getting better and better each time, every time we discuss -- we have this discussion. So I'm fine with it as is. I don't see it as unfair. I don't know if others do. >> Well, and let's -- there's two issues working here. One is, you asked the question, I've never had to do this before. Why are we having to do it now? The City Manager just mentioned we had 60 requests. I think it was in a couple of months or something like that, is that? >> At one point in the first two months of last summer, we had 48 work session requests. And, you know, I want to expand a little bit because, you know, on the answer for the public and for the council, one of the things I promised this council when I was hired is this staff would not be involved in politics at all. And one of the things that makes me uncomfortable with the agenda committee process, and the Mayor and I have talked about this, as far as making sure none of you feel like your work session requests are being held up by me and him. And so I haven't been able to find a different way of really gauging all of your input at one time other than this. If we're willing to do this every few months and limit the number of work session requests to 12 or 15, we can make it work. But I don't believe my office should ever be put in a position where there's ever a politically motivated reason to I just won't do it. And I think that it needs to be a discussion from all of you how you want to spend your time. And I'm not saying any of you would have really ever said something like that to me. But from my perspective, it's very important that you make this decision collectively how you spend your time. And so the next part of that is so how do we set a priority? That's really the whole genesis of this whole discussion. So when you said why have I never had to do this before? Because in the past we haven't had situations where there were literally 40 requests for work sessions. And so we had to figure out a way how to prioritize them to give staff direction. So we can do it. This is just one option that we came up with as we work through this process. We can come up with other options. But it's about how do we give staff direction on how to fill those very limited spots on a work session for individual council requests for work session items. That's really all this is about. We don't do it for what staff needs to bring to us because that's the necessary running the business of the city. It's those sort of I don't say discretionary, but informational kind of work sessions that each council member asks for to get some additional information on some potential policy direction. So that's the only reason we have this. And I think if we get down to a situation where we have manageable requests for work session items, I've been on council now collectively for 11 years, and we've never had to do this. And I've never been aware that we've had 40 or 50 work session requests within that time. So I could be wrong, but I might not have been privy to that. Councilmember Meltzer. And then councilmember Husband. Personally, I think it's way fairer and more transparent to do it this way than with the traditional agenda committee way, like it could be just decided between mayor, mayor pro tem and city manager. So the fact that, you know, it kind of reflects the council as a body, I think is great. I don't personally understand councilmember Briggs reluctance to express her thoughts in advance that way. That's your privilege. But I also don't have a very serious objection to her registering her thoughts in real time. You know, it's adds a little theatricality to it. So it'd be fun to find out what they turn out to be. But I don't think it's a serious problem. And then, you know, we have the electronics to sort of update the tallies in real time. Go ahead. No, I don't think that I mean, because you've the answer to that to me is because once you see the tallies, they're all within one, two points. I mean, you could you could sway the list. Bless you. You could sway the list after this session. And so yeah, I think the survey is fair. This is coming from someone that's been on the been on the one side of six, you know, and we don't revisit those, you know, I gotta I'm in district one with all the habitat homes and it stays that way, you know, and so I think it's tough to be on the one side of six, three side of four, whatever that is. But I think this body made a decision. And if we want to revisit that decision, absolutely, let's do that. But I think where we're going to end up is having the conversation live. And then you don't get them scheduled because it happens live and then you got to go back and rework that. So that's just my personal preference. I respect the not filling out the form, the form that the surveys already been weaponized in my, you know, process and I think it will continue to be do so. So I don't and it's okay, I like that I like because I have a succinct answer for every vote and I double check my votes. So when I say I went back and looked at my request, I graded it first. And then I went and looked at that list and said if I didn't if just on this topic, if I didn't have it ranked high, I was going to ask for it to be removed. That's not seeing who asked for it. That's just going through it organically and saying these things are most important to me just on time. And then I wouldn't reconcile that to see these three have my name associated with it. And if I didn't write those high, I was going to say hey, take it off because even you know, it's a problem. It's a problem. And so that's my own internal checks and balances. So I think either this body needs to either embrace where we're going or there's seven of us. That's two a piece. That's 14. So get it down to two, one or the other, you know, and that gets us where staff can function and I mean, and everybody in the public can see if you're talking about who the requests are, everyone's names associated on there. It's all archived on the website, very easy to see who has more than two and who has some work to do, and they can make a decision, you know. I don't know if we really solved anything here. I mean, for the very reasons you stated, I certainly respect your decision not to have to fill out the survey. I really struggle with coming in after the fact with the data, not because you're not entitled to your priorities, you are, but then I would be okay if as long as your priorities don't necessarily move it up or somebody at this day is can say, well, then I'm going to change my priority, but that to me is where I struggle with it is because we're all doing it at the same and it's sort of a blind survey. It's a blind survey in some respect. I don't know how anybody else has filled out that survey. Staff compiles it. They put it up there. So it's a more, I think, objective, organic representation of the priority. And I just really, I just don't like the idea of coming in after the fact and moving things. That's just my own personal opinion. Yes. My list is the same and it stayed the same. And so you can just add another point to the items up here for the ones that I gave you because those will be my high priority until they come to council and then others may change. So I'm not going to take a survey because my priorities don't change and you can just add me to those and the people who heard me speak just now know what they are. They're not going to change. It's not a moving list. Okay. All right. So if you could, you don't have to necessarily repeat them. If you could just get those out to council, what your high priorities were that on the survey, that's how you would fill the survey out with high priorities on those items that you've listed and I think that gives at least us information on what your high priorities are. So I mean, that's fine. Yeah, I just went through them and the rest would be low priorities. There's no interest. Councilmember Armitage. And kind of just to add on a positive note that, you know, I think that this method really works best when we do end up some of us changing our priorities live at the meeting as we just did in the case of fireside, in the case of gosh, I'm forgetting right now what the first one was that came up, but, you know, this is why we have these discussions. So survey is a useful tool, no substitute for having discussions when we can listen to each other, listen to staff, change our minds, that's the process that helps whittle it down. Well, the two examples that you mentioned were not brought up to change the status moving it up. It was just simply saying they're moot and they're no longer applicable. So in other words, those two examples, yes, we can have those discussions on removing them. I don't disagree with you at all. But I don't think I wouldn't categorize that as the same kind of discussion we're having that Councilmember Briggs just had, which is fine. She told us what her higher priorities were. We know them now and we move forward from there. Not to extend the conversation too much, but just to say that since our options are high interest, low interest and no interest, I see it as I've moved, I've changed my ranking from high interest to no interest, so just two sides of the same coin. I think the whole Council made that decision. I mean, you were the one that requested it on one of them and you said, "I don't have an interest in that anymore." It wasn't up there anyway. It was more of a, we made a consensus decision based upon the direction that Councilmember or I think Councilmember Hussbett had said is to go through the list and take the ones off that have your name by them that you don't think are applicable anymore that you don't have an interest in. Yeah. All right. Then we're going to close this discussion. Yeah, Councilmember Meltzer. I would just say, kind of piggybacking on that comment, I agree with your characterization of what did happen, but I wouldn't mind if it did happen the way Councilmember Armentor describes. In other words, that it's a live document. If Councilmember Briggs has the, we've done the survey, those of us who do, if Councilmember Briggs retains the privilege to give votes live, that extends to others to change it as well and I think we'll reach good decisions. I don't think anybody said you can't look at this list and change your mind or change your priority or anything like that. If there wasn't any decision on it to begin with. This is going to be an ongoing discussion. It doesn't sound like we've formed any big, fast rule. Councilmember Briggs was gracious enough to let us know that, hey, if I was going to fill the survey out, this is how I would fill it. So go ahead and put it in in future surveys as those high priorities and those low priorities and then that'll give staff the opportunity to be able to accumulate them from all Councilmembers as they present it at the next work session. Yes, sir. Yeah. Real quick. Yes. And this is for staff only. Okay. But can you update the website with those scores or, you know, because they're tracked electronically. They're stored online. And so if you could update those, make sure everyone has access to the updated rankings. Right. Yeah. So online, I can go find mine and in that archive. So those, if you're manually inputting those, however that works, it needs to be archived. Okay. We can do that. Go ahead. Yeah, I just had another note here just to make sure that as the budget comes to us, because there's some items in here, I just want to strongly encourage that those be looked at as ways to come to us that normally we do here in the budget with the economic development or impact fees or, you know, things like that. Yeah, I would ask staff to go through and those things that are pretty strictly budget related, you know, we just need to pull those out and just answer them during the budget because there's no sense in having a duplicate conversation of that, especially when we're talking about that our time here is limited on different types of discretionary discussions. So I'll work with Ryan on that and we'll see what can be aggregated, what we're going to hit already. We'll just send everything out to the requester and then we will revise the list accordingly. So if some of these drop off, that's fine. It is also helpful once you have the ISRs because Rachel and Ryan have been leaving the ISR lists here too, if that has satisfied you, just let us know so we can keep windowing that down. You know, the point of the ISR list is, you know, those always have the ability per council previous discussion to end up as workshop. So really important to let us know if you're satisfied with the approach. So my question on that is how best would it work for staff? Because I'll just admit it, I mean, I look at the ISR list and I look at it and I might look at it and go, hey, I'm satisfied with this is I didn't see that there's a mechanism or is there a place where we can check to say or how do we communicate that to you in a way that's pretty objective and pretty standard form of communication on that? Just a simple email to me or me and I'll get it distributed. Okay. Any other discussions on this? So could you reflect back the five that we -- which ones we're looking at that will be on future agendas? So if council gives direction to combine all the gas well items, which that seems to be the case to work on consolidating some of these items, there's a natural -- we don't want to break in the middle of equal scores. So we have ten that rank -- two that rank with a score of top score of 16 and another eight with a score of 15. And so what we would do when we get the feedback from council on what is important, maybe what issues have been solved by an ISR, we'll rework this list and make sure that we -- if there's a natural break where we can shrink that down, we'll make sure to communicate that to council. Okay. So this list is going to be modified based upon the discussion here today, like impact fee revenue use. I heard there's a desire to have that in the budget discussion. Correct. Is that -- I thought I heard you say that, councilmember Briggs. So there's going to be some of those things that come off, which will then allow some of the ones below the list to sort of move into that and you'll make that adjustment. Yes, sir. To move up and perhaps get a nice more compact top five or six. Okay. Councilmember Nelson. You're already going to have six. You're already going to be removed off this list. Okay. So we should be able to run with all of those. Okay. All right. Okay. Would 3 be one of those? Yes. Because that would be covered in budget, too. Yeah. We're ready to go on that, but you'll be seeing the water and wastewater budget next month, so we'll just include that in as a slide. So on the gas well luncheon. Yes, sir. How far out have we scheduled the luncheons or about when would you anticipate -- is that in the next month, two months? I mean, don't take too much time looking, but -- July. I would believe July would be the next opportunity for a luncheon. Okay. Balancing that with any budget meetings that have to take place in that. On Mondays? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Briggs, did you have a question? Okay. Councilmember Hussbeth. Mr. City Manager, I'll give you a heads up so that you can calculate it and it's a hot button for me. So when that gas well conversation comes along, I'd like to know the instances where a project met the current ordinances, but ordinance was -- but was denied. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Good discussion. Excellent. Thank you all. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Thank you. First presentation? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Good job. All right. Wonderful job. Yes. I don't have to do a Bonn presentation today, so. It's all downhill from now. Okay. We'll move on to work session item 2B. Receive a report and hold discussion to give staff direction regarding dent and television staffing and the streaming, recording, and making public meetings available for on-demand viewing. You know what? Let's take about a five-minute break. Sure. Yeah. Let's take a five-minute break. All right. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council. We're moving through our -- it is 317. We're moving through our work session reports. It's Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019 at 317. Work session report 3B. Receive a report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding the dent and television DTV staffing and the streaming, recording, and making public meetings available for on-demand viewing. Mayor, Council, Billy Matthews with the Public Affairs Office. It's good to be with you today to talk about DTV. It's always good to talk about DTV. Today I want to share information regarding the current public meeting production schedule, provide options to achieve staffing sustainability, and seek direction from Council on public meeting production. This is a very general 30,000-foot view of the areas of responsibility for DTV. I just wanted to give you context to what we're talking about today. As you can see on the right, public meetings, and we'll be talking about that. As you know, we run a television station 24/7. We feed three different cable companies, two via fiber, one via analog, and we have to handle all that equipment in the control room. We manage the channel itself, the scheduling of programs, and all of those things. And probably the best thing we get to do is produce videos about the city and help tell the city's story. As you can see there, the recurring programs like DTV Newsbreak, which we produce three of those a week, one-time programs like the State of the City video or the budget video that we produced last week, and then the shorter videos, public service announcements and promotions for city services, and those are three of the most recent ones that we've produced. And the neat thing about all of those videos is we run them on the channel, they run on the 24/7 stream, they're available on the city's YouTube channel in high definition, and we share them on the city's social media outlets, the city's Twitter feed and Facebook account. And I don't know if you've noticed, but the last couple of months, that's really become a robust area of focus for the Public Affairs Office, a lot of engagement with our citizens, two-way communication, but our videos are a part of that. Folks share our videos, comment on them, like them, and it's really a good thing. But to public meetings. In 1993, DTV began televising city council meetings and added the Planning and Zoning Commission a couple years later. In 2009, we started for the first time streaming the channel and streaming those meetings and making them available on demand. Those first meetings are still available on our website. In 2017, we added the four new bodies that we haven't done before, Public Utility Board, the Mobility Committee, Economic Development Partnership Board, and Traffic Safety. And at the request in August of 2018, I visited with the Committee on Citizen Engagement. They were interested in finding out about our capacity and what our options would be. We shared data with them, and they wanted to look to increase more meetings and make them available on demand. At the end of that discussion, I said I would come back and visit with them once we did some research and looked at some sustainable options that we thought we could bring forward. We did that earlier this month. I met with them a second time earlier this month, and I presented a recommendation moving forward. But prior to getting that recommendation, I'd like to share some analytics regarding the channel and the six meetings that we currently do. This data is from the last six months of 2018. You can see the six meeting bodies on the left, how many meetings they had in those six months, the total cumulative length of all those meetings combined, DTV staff time in hours, and the average views of live and on-demand for all those meetings. So during that six-month period, as you can see, Council, for instance, 226 live and on-demand. So say if 100 people were watching live, then 126 went back and watched it later to get to that 226 figure. Here's some more analytics. Year-over-year, the last three years. This is recent. That's through March of 2019. So you can see the second from the far right column, 2019. That's April of '18 through March of '19. The 2018 year is the 12 months prior to that, and the '17 is the 12 months prior to that. So you can see total meetings produced year-over-year from 2018 to '17, 64% increase in the number of meetings. Total produced hours of meetings in the 2018 over '17, 47% increase. And the length of city council meetings, year two over year one, increased 37%. And you can see the most recent data in the 2019 column, 8% increase in meetings produced, 33% increase year-over-year in produced hours, and 33% increase in council meeting length. As you can imagine, as I've been here 10 years and I didn't plan on meetings doubling in a year and a half. So the capacity for our staff, three and a half folks that work for DTV, we need to figure out a sustainable model going forward we can manage this. So as you can see those other stats, 78% in the two years, 96% more hours, and 83% length of city council meeting increase. >> Real quick question. Refresh my memory on the slide. When we started adding some of these sort of subcommittee, sub council committee, like economic development partnership board, that's not a council meeting, but the traffic, actually the ad hoc committees. When did we start doing that? >> 2017. >> Okay. So that's part of that are those additional meetings. >> The increase. Correct. >> Thank you. >> Currently we're at capacity and we've been that way. In that last bullet point, video requests have been delayed or may continue to be reduced. Obviously we get a -- there's a large demand for our -- to produce videos for departments, upcoming events, public service announcements and that type of thing, and we work those in and around and have been able to manage those amongst all the meetings that we produce. It's becoming more and more of a challenge in our current state. So we do have options, to achieve staffing sustainability for meeting production and provide flexibility, we develop these options. I want to explain the first one, outsource contract to you. As you can see there, we could outsource 50 meetings for cost to the general fund of $10,000. We would also incur a one-time capital cost of $35,000 to purchase and install the equipment. We could fund that out of the public education and government fund, the PEG fund, and those funds are exclusive to capital purchases related to the channel, and that would be a lawful expense. That fund -- the revenue stream for that fund is the 1% charge for cable services for the citizens in Denton that have cable, whether it's Charter or Frontier or Grande. If they have a $100 cable bill a month, a dollar of theirs goes into this fund and the cable companies remit that to the city on a quarterly basis. So you can see what a part-time employee would cost and a full-time employee. So when we started to look at this, outsourcing became an option. I wanted to tell you about Swagat. Swagat Productions is the company we're talking to. They currently own and provide service to us that entire ecosystem that is the public meetings part of the website. So all the tabs with the various meetings, chronology of whether it's city council or planning and zoning, that's all Swagat. They interface with Legistar, our agenda management system, and so the agendas and the backups and all those documents all live there together in one place. They provide that service that has the jump-to links for the meetings where people can go to a specific agenda item and jump to that. You can imagine that's helpful in the long meetings. So they also remotely produce public meetings for other cities, counties, and school districts. So we would install the equipment if we chose to do this, and they would, from their headquarters in Dallas, produce a three-camera production in hi-def that would live just like our videos live on the website in that same place, have the jump-to links exactly like they are now. So that's who they are. It would provide flexibility and scalability to what we're doing. It would give us engineering redundancy. Currently we have this set up in this room, but if something was to happen, this would be totally untethered to our gear and our system. So we would have a backup system that we don't have today, and then it would augment our staff to not have to add staff, but be able to create capacity and bandwidth to produce more videos. There are several people who have got questions. Let's get through this. You've got two more slides left, so let's get through there. So here's three options that we're laying out. Obviously there are several options, but to supplement staff with the outsourcing of 50 public meetings, it's scalable and could grow. I'm recommending, if we were to do this, to do 50 that first year, but we could do 75, 100, 200, whatever council's desire would be, that's scalable going up or down. We could revisit the current meeting production schedule. What meetings we're currently doing. Should we keep doing those? Should we switch some of those out to a different body or board? Or keep everything the way it is? Along with city council, the five other meetings here in green are the five we're currently producing. That's my last slide. So we're going to go councilmember Briggs, councilmember Meltzer, and then councilmember Armitage. So it's a few points. Thank you for the presentation, and I feel like I'm a little ahead because I heard it in the committee. In that committee, I did ask you if you could just kind of tell the council and the public why audio would work, but it would require just the amount of staff time as well, right? Because I asked you, well, couldn't we just hot mic the room and turn the microphones off without the video, and then we could go and click the audio instead of just having the video. Can you expand on that a little? There are a couple of different challenges. We obviously could do that. I'd be disappointed as a citizen if I was to try to listen to an audio recording and not hear everybody and know who's talking. As evidenced by these meetings, we have some audio challenges with microphones. If we were to do that and get that right, we'd have to have somebody here managing that audio to ensure that it was going to be good, and if we're going to do that, we might as well just do the TV because we can do it with one person, and we do many of these smaller meetings with one person. So that would be a recommendation. Along with that, those audio files would live somewhere else. They wouldn't -- and I don't know what that looks like, but we could figure that out -- but they wouldn't live in the Swagat system where all the agendas are and the other meetings are where our citizens are used to viewing them. So it's an option, but I wouldn't recommend that option for those reasons. So that's the live mic. On the equipment, you may have said this, but just to reiterate, the $35,000, that's for the equipment part, and that is a purchase. So that would belong to the city. We're not going to be renting that, so it wouldn't be an amount that we pay every year. Correct. That's a one-time charge to buy the equipment, and they would install it, and the city would own the equipment. I would imagine five years or so, ballpark, similar to what we're doing, we would want to change at least some of it out, but it wouldn't be a rent, and it would last several years. Because it advances so quickly? Right. Okay. So I'm good for now. Thanks for the clarification on audio. Sure. It doesn't save anything. What's the point? A lot of this interest is because, first of all, the videos are a great way to experience a meeting when you're not here, of course, but they also get posted faster than minutes. And another thing that I think is at least worth talking about is whether we could change our process for approval of minutes. This might be a question for legal. We generally wait until the next meeting of that body to approve minutes, but generally those bodies are constituted of people who are here, and I wonder if we could, let's say just prior to the beginning of weekly council meetings, to kind of briefly convene committee meetings to approve minutes, approve minutes, approve minutes, because the minutes are actually really well done and are very helpful, and I think might meet some of the need. What you're asking, I mean, for me to answer that question being two parts, the first is you would definitely have to amend your rules procedure, provide for that, and possibly some of the council subcommittee enabling resolutions. The second part is the time expense that the liaisons to these committees are going back and drafting your meeting minutes. Are you, if I interpret you correctly, you want that to be done before you come to council so that you could break out into your subcommittees and approve those minutes, just like that? Is that correct? Well, more or less, I mean, there's generally at least one, if not three, council meetings or more, you know, in between those subcommittee meetings, so I don't know how long it takes to draft those minutes, but there's probably an opportunity to post them sooner if we had a way to approve them sooner. And that would depend on the staff resources, the length of those meeting minutes, can it be done? It's possible. I can't say definitively. Yeah, I mean, I'm imagining a world where they're done, but they're just waiting to be approved, so I don't know if that's true at all. Council Member Armitage. Well, so first of all, I'd like to request an internal staff report on what Council Member Meltzer just said. I know it's an issue, especially for these committees that meet, that have, you know, once between meetings when somebody, and I can get back to you on what exactly that was at ISR for. Let's see, so as I understand it, it's a swag it does Dallas City Council meetings, is that right? Or? Like they do ours now. They record and make available on demand all of those meetings in this remote system. There are several cities across the country that do it. I've got a list of some of the local ones just to give you an idea. Rockwall, DeSoto, McKinney ISD, Addison, Kauffman County, and City of Richardson all use the remote production system. Okay, so Dallas doesn't do it remotely? No, they use swag it the way we do now. They produce their own meeting, but swag it records it and makes it available. Got it. Well, anyways, I too, like Council Member Briggs, I'm on the Committee for Citizen Engagement, so I got to hear this before. I am strongly in support of, I believe it's option one, to go ahead and do this. The big expense is a one-time only, and it involves equipment that we get to keep. We have transparency as one of our key goals, and we can always strive to keep doing better with that. I want to also put a word in for the value of the archive. Council Member Meltzer had mentioned the problem with minutes or the delay in the posting that at least this would enable people to be able to watch the meeting before the minutes get posted. In addition to that, looking way forward into the future, when we archive, when we have a meeting recorded, even if only, whether 10 people watch it or 265, we've got a video in the archive that is a public document that serves real historical value. Even when we might not think what we're doing has historical value, you never know. I'm saying that as I'm an academic and I work with archives all the time, but I know that you don't know in the present the things you do that are going to have value in the future. For all those reasons, I think it's very reasonable. I was pleased to see how reasonable it is to get so much more transparency. Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Hudson. Let me make a note here. Could you go back to the options? My thought is I'm okay with Swag It if there's a component where we could have a mandate that we partner with UNT kids or something, that they get a certain amount of that. If it's all remote, I get it. It's all remote. Okay. It would literally be turnkey. We wouldn't have anybody in the building doing it. Okay. Got it. Then I understand that. I would like to look for ways for us to partner or outsource to UNT kiddos where we can. I don't know what that is. The other thing that I didn't hear you mention that I'd like to see is, and I guess that university kids, not just UNT, let me preface because that, too, gets weaponized, but let me then talk about closed captioning. I'd like to know where we are with that. I know there's, just personally, there's people I outsource videos to that do that and then send you that back, that text. I don't know what that merging technology is, but I just think we have to begin to work to that end. If we're talking new equipment, we're talking doing something different, more meetings, I think those go hand in hand, just for me. I don't know if there's consensus for that, but that's something that's important to me. I do see on the scheduling question, I'd like to see it rotating to some degree. I just think some of the meetings that are lesser watched, we can rotate quarterly, monthly. I don't know what that schedule looks like, but more of a schedule than every meeting. We're going to record every economic development partnership board. Instead of that, it kind of has some cycle, but I'll tell you, too, that I'd like to have added permanently, and I don't know if there's any traction for that, one zoning board of adjustments because that does not come back to us, and so I think that is important to archive that and to have that kind of captured in video, and then also the ethics board meetings. I think that's something that needs to be regularly recorded just because there's an interest, but there's not always an interest to be seen. I think there's just people that want to understand what's going on, but don't want to be seen in the building, and so I think that allows that to happen, and I think it's a good way for citizens, hopefully, to get more engaged in that process. Takes away some of what's going on behind the curtain, and so I'd like those to. So ZBA ethics board, I think, added to the list, I can give you a list of those that I'd like to take off if that's necessary, but that's kind of my approach. The closed captioning and ways to put more UNT and TWU and NCTC kids to work would be my kind of my options one through three-ish. Can I address just a couple of those? Sure. Our former intern that interned with us here works for Swaget at the Dallas headquarters. They hire kids like what you're talking about from Denton. I'll get you some more research on that, but that's happening. So can you help me understand the, I think, was it the $10,000 for the actual $10,000 that we really can add in the committee would be for, if we outsourced it, yeah, just kind of go over with me, for new meetings or just the ones that you want to transition over? My hope to create bandwidth with our staff so we can produce more videos in-house would be to transition, and again, at your pleasure as to deciding on what meetings we're going to do or not do, but in its current state to transition these three, EDP, mobility and traffic safety, over to Swaget, that would create about 20 more meetings of the 50 that would be available. So possibly two more at roughly 10 meetings each could be added to our current, if we left everything the same. Does that make sense? Two more to the city staff or two more to? No, two more meeting bodies that we could add to Swaget to get to 50. Okay. So if we transition EDP mobility and traffic safety, it's going to be approximately 30 meetings a year. So there would be two more bodies that meet roughly 10 times a year that we could add if we left the rest of it the same. So this is where I would like to request having a committee on the environment added. I don't know if the full council, this is my plug for that committee, I know that people have requested that it be shown. I am okay with the outsource. I think having you guys freed up to do things that you need to with public service announcements, especially with the engaged and the recycling issue right now, it's really important. We can market and get messages out to the residents through other ways, DTV. So that's really important to me as well. I did want to ask the city manager or assistant city managers and maybe council, because up here we have mobility and traffic safety. And so I think I asked you during the meeting, is that pretty much the same topics that come from traffic safety that come to mobility, or are they different? And so do we need to have, you know, does it need to just focus on council committees or do we need to record citizen committees if those items and topics are coming to that council committee? It's just a conversation I'm curious about. Good afternoon, Mario Kanazares, assistant city manager. The topics that come to traffic safety, sometimes they are the same that come to mobility. But the ones that come to traffic safety are typically items that require an ordinance change for, say, for example, a speed limit change or no parking request that's come through a neighborhood or in the downtown area. So they vary. Again, it's related mostly to, again, traffic safety type related items versus mobility can be pedestrian oriented, roads, updates, things of that nature. And there are, again, citizens that have been appointed by council. So those items either come to mobility or they eventually get to council? More than likely. From mobility? From traffic safety? Yes, ma'am. If there is a policy recommendation that's going to be made, it would absolutely come to council for a vote, yay or nay. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Bometter? Let's see. So a couple of things. The comment about closed captioning, I completely agree that's important. I had brought that up when we had the meeting on the committee for citizen engagement. I want to add to the list, even though we're not deciding this now, but since it's brought up on this topic, that the committee for persons with disabilities is a really important committee to benefit from this service because there are people who are directly affected by the issues discussed who have disabilities who, because of their disability, it's not easy for them to get around and just go to a meeting. So having the videotape meeting with closed captioning for people who need that would benefit all committees, but benefit that committee in particular, but I also support the inclusion of the committees that have been mentioned so far, I believe ZBA, ethics committee, committee on the environment. One thing I like about this model is that 50 meetings, it could be dispersed differently among different committees depending on whatever. So obviously we don't have to decide that now, but it's not necessarily a matter of that there will be some committees that, because they're not on some initial list, would never get one of those 50 meetings. There will always be an opportunity for any committee or council person or members of the public to lobby and write to council and say, hey, there's a meeting coming up, a traffic safety committee meeting coming up on this date that's a big matter of public interest and could apply it. So anyway, I'm excited about this possibility and thank you very much for doing all the legwork on that. Can I address the closed captioning real quick? We got quotes on that and I actually have a recommendation standing here that's a little off topic, but just to give council an understanding, if we were to close caption council meetings only, so this is a closed captioning for 50 meetings a year, which is roughly how many meetings council does. These would not be live, they would be done after the fact, roughly 20 grand a year to do that. What's included in that, which would be very helpful to the city secretary, she and I talked about it, is unedited transcripts of the entire meeting that would help her. So what they would do is it would post three to four days after the meeting that the closed captioning would be on the file for on demand and the transcripts would be sent to the city secretary's office. So that after the fact captioning for council, I would recommend council, but for 50 meetings regardless is right at 20,000. If we were to go live for 50 meetings, and I assume we'd start with council if we were to do that, there's a one-time charge of approximately 50 grand for the equipment. And then it's 25 to 30 depending on the length of the meetings going forward. Yeah, so just follow up on that. If we could have that in a staff report on that, that would be great. Thank you, Mayor. Can you flip to slide eight up there? Because we're looking at what additional we might want to add, because I'm in favor of option one. It's my thought or opinion, I agree with the presenting board of adjustments and ethics boards are too, and to me the ones that have final decision-making power, which are those that are under the ethics ordinance, are the ones that should take top priority for being on the list of what we record. So I kind of question, not that I don't want to do traffic safety, but it would make more sense to be doing somebody who has a final decision-making power, as opposed to traffic safety, that anything that goes through them is going to come through us as well. Council Member Hussbett and Council Member Meltzer. I would just, I'm just going to ask for, on behalf of staff in this body, that that last, I mean, obviously each council member has their options, but I would ask Council Member Arbutar that we just take that up during the budget session. I mean, I don't know that there isn't much we can discuss in an informal staff report. I mean, the number is 20K. What goes into the number is closed captioning, and then it just becomes a decision. We want to pay 50, I mean, do we want to pay the 75-ish to have it live, or the 20 to have it after the fact. But really, I don't know that we need to add to that list of what staff has to do for that. We're going to be having a budget conversation. And everyone, to their own, I'm just making that ask. Happy to have the conversation, and I'll get mine out of the way. So you have my word that I won't talk when we do it. I want the afterwards for 20K, I'm in, you know. And I think we can outsource that for cheaper, but I don't want to advocate for doing that. But I'd say 20K is money well spent to have that option after the fact. >> Councilmember Nelson. >> I guess, maybe, again, this would be better done in the budget session. But I don't really have a handle on what the total PEG funds are. And so by making each of these decisions, are we taking away from something else? Or does the PEG fund budget tend to just run a surplus that sits there? Just, I don't really know what we're weighing. >> There's, the PEG fund is constantly rebuilding. I mean, and as Billy said, it's extremely constrained in terms of how the dollars can be spent. We would definitely recommend that if you want to bring swagging on that we would go ahead and spend the $30,000. I think really the only question we have left is the number of committees. If we did all the council committees, I've heard board of adjustment, the ethics board. We're probably going to need to expand that contract somewhere between 75 and 100 for the year to give him some flexibility. And if that's really where the council is, that's fine, we can do it and move. And certainly have him and Rosa get you an update on what will change. >> So look, I mean, we don't want to get bogged down in choosing the committees right now. I think if we're going to be, because I think we need to find a process in order to choose the committees. We need to set some standards in place, because everybody at this table could name, well, I've heard. Different committees from different people, so how do we decide that? And I think Mayor Pro Tem had a very good suggestion, that is those that have judicial, what did you call it, judicial what? >> Final decision making authority. >> Final decision making authority. Quasi-judicial authority. And so I think that's where we need to start to figure out how do we define a process to choose these committees. And we can have that discussion, but we need to have some rules of standardization to help us determine that. Because we're not going to all of a sudden spend $100,000 or $200,000 to start filming all the committees, unless we have that during the budget discussion, I mean, period. So I think the most important thing is how do we choose the committees at this time? There's sort of been an ad hoc choice in the past. We had council planning and zoning. Then we just named, I don't know how the others got named, but they were just named sort of randomly. I mean, somebody made a decision, nobody objected. But if we're going to start trying to figure out how do we build up this sort of filming and recording these committees, we need to figure out a way how to select them. So I would advocate that first before we start talking about specific committees. Council Member Armitage. >> So a couple of things, one, I just want to say, I actually agree with what Council Member Hutzpah said. When I asked for a staff report, I just meant I wanted to see it in writing. When I asked for a staff report, I don't necessarily mean I want a work session on that topic. So I just wanted to see it in writing. Doesn't have to be a big narrative, just kind of a list of the figures that you mentioned. So I can have it, it can be out there public and searchable on the staff reports. But I completely agree, it's appropriate for that to come up at budget season. As far as prioritization, I agree that it's a good idea to have some sort of method in place. For me, as far as I'm concerned, it's public interest that's the determining factor. Of course, that's something that's hard to objectively weigh. But public interest in these committees will be a key factor for me. >> We've got some data on that, don't we, as far as who's watching? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah, Council Member Briggs. >> So just, can you go back to the options or the price, just for, I'm trying to look for clarification. Cuz you, a while ago, the city manager just said it went from 10,000 to 100,000, like just by adding. And so I'm just trying to figure out, because we have room to add two more committees within the 10,000 that you mentioned already. >> No, which has yet to be decided. If we keep everything the way it is, we have roughly 20 meetings to get to 50. So that would be two committee meetings that meet ten times a year. >> And so is the $10,000 that we saw on the budget, that for the whole year or just for the rest of this year? >> That's for a whole year. >> Okay. >> So if we were to do, and I have a supplemental in the budget process going forward of 19-20. I've already entered a supplemental for this. So if we were to do something sooner, it wouldn't be that much. >> Okay, so- >> It'd be prorated. >> Okay, so it'd be less than 10,000 if we wanted to go ahead and move these ones already being recorded over so that you guys can be freed up for, from now on. >> Right, okay, so I'm just trying to get, okay. So when you mentioned closed captioning and so you mentioned the 50,000 for the equipment. Is that separate from the 35,000 that was listed? Or is that- >> Yeah, it's a totally different- >> Totally different thing, okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Okay, cuz we're sort of getting spread out to where I'm losing sort of track of what we're really trying to give you direction for. >> Sure. >> So obviously, the closed caption thing is something you can bring back to us in a memo or an email. >> Sure. >> Summarize that. So if you go back to your options, so what I'm understanding is that if we go with option one, that means we're gonna have, you're recommending we move those three, one, two, three, to SWAG it, which then increases the opportunity, and then add another 20 additional meetings or two committees, however we come up with those meetings for the budget that you had described. >> Correct. >> And then could be re-evaluated to expand, yes. So I'm okay with that, and then we can talk about closed caption in the budget process. We can actually talk about this in the budget. Is this to be implemented in the current budget or the next budget? >> It's currently a supplemental going forward for next year. >> Okay. >> I was asked to come sooner in case we- >> Okay. >> If you wanted to implement his recommendations right away, the PEG funding, the capital equipment isn't gonna change anything. >> Gotcha, all right, okay. >> So I'm okay with option one, Council Member Briggs. >> I'm okay with option one, but I would also, with it being less than 10,000, I don't know how much pro-rated it would be to ask the city manager if it was within his stipend or fund to go ahead and maybe do that, if it's okay with Council, then rather than wait till the end of the budget season, where we decide on this, if this is something that our DTV department is in need of some relief. >> Yeah, you're saying do that now? >> It- >> Yeah, okay. Whether it's his spending discretion or if Council even says, hey, use the PEG funds and use whatever discretionary funding we have within his authority, and then if it needs to come back to Council, we need that. >> Okay, I agree with that. Mayor Pro Tem? You good? >> I agree with that. >> Okay, Council Member Barmichael? Anybody got an objection, I guess I should ask? Council Member Meltzer? >> Not an objection, but I am looking forward to just a better understanding, maybe in the budget process, of the ins and outs of the PEG funds. >> Okay, yeah, and we probably have an ISR somewhere already on the PEG funds and what they do. >> We'll get it out. >> Maybe a couple years old or something. We'll just maybe have somebody redistribute that. You all okay with that? All right, you got your direction? >> So just so we are transitioning those three committees to swag it. We will save additional ongoing supplemental dollar requests for the formal budget presentation when Billy comes back to see this summer, is that correct? >> Say that one more time. >> This is why I ask, so we are following Billy's recommendation to transition EDP, mobility, traffic safety to swag it. >> The first bullet, the first arrow. >> The other committees, because there had been discussion on a number of other committees, we will treat that as a budget supplemental when he comes back this summer, is that right? >> Either that or we could begin to developing a process of how we choose those committees. >> Okay. >> In the meantime. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right, we can do that. >> Okay. >> Just for clarification, the amount that was given, has room for those already additional meetings. It wouldn't be a less amount if we didn't correct. So I mean, we may need to start, we may need to get a survey out on. >> Really, seriously. >> Well again, this isn't going to happen tomorrow, and if we get it up and running by July, there's not that much left through September, I mean. >> Yeah, okay. Yeah, Council Member Hesped. >> So just understanding the follow-up. So follow-up will be closed caption during budget conversations and email on. So I want to distribute an email about you and college kids that want to do this type work. How they would give me a contact, etc, etc, please, and thank you. >> And we're all unclear about what those other two meetings are going to be. >> That's right, yeah, that's the process whereby we come up with a procedure. Maybe a set of standards to determine that, and it won't be a survey either. I can tell you that much. So anyway, all right, any other questions, comments? All right, thank you. Appreciate it, Billy, good job. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> I'll go back to my. >> You'll go back to the control room, it's the safety of the control room. >> Okay, we'll move on to receive, report, and hold discussion, provide staff direction regarding a special citizens bond advisory committee and public art funds for the proposed 2019 bond program. >> Good afternoon, David Gaines, assistant finance director. This is our third meeting concerning the 2019 bond election and possible bond program. We came to you first on April 1st and then last week on April 16th. And at that meeting, we got direction to move forward with the bond program and bring forward a resolution to move forward with consideration. An establishing resolution to move forward with the bond program. Included in the resolution would be a formation of the committee, direction on how we want to appoint the members, and a charge for the committee moving forward. So we'll touch on each of those. And then later this evening, we'll have individual consideration, the actual enabling resolution for the committee itself. So the purpose of the committee is to make recommendations to the council on the projects that will be on the election and the amounts associated with each of those projects. The committee will meet regularly with staff, utilizing staff for information. Then discuss capital projects that will be included on the election in November. And then formally dissolve after election day. The CVAC membership that we discussed last week. The original plan was to have five members from our current bond oversight committee. And then have each of the council members select two, appoint two members additional to have 19 total. At this time, we have three commitments from the current bond oversight committee. So those three have said they'd be interested in participating. And then council beginning this evening has an opportunity to start appointing any of the two or however many council would like to appoint each to the committee as well. So you'll have the opportunity this evening to appoint members. But also moving forward, we can appoint members at future meetings. >> Yep, okay. >> Council Member Berry, did you have a question? >> Just another comment. Can we, when we see this right here, have names of the members who have agreed so that we know who is on our committee as we make these nominations be very helpful? >> Sure, and I include, we'll have a presentation this evening as well so we can include that. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, so here are the charges based on the conversation last week. The categories of programs to be considered by the committee that's laid out in the charge and the resolution would be public safety projects, major roadway projects, local street improvements. And then, so those were really the key points that we hit on in the proposal last week. We also had the alternative projects that could also be included, and those are included in the charge for the committee to consider, including street lights and sidewalks and park and open space. So based on the discussion last week, the parameters would be to stay within the 210 million and look at any projects considered in these groups. So the language in the resolution is to that effect. >> Question, Councilman Williams? Okay. >> So I'm going to move over to the, talk a little bit about public art funding with some follow up questions from last week. A couple of the questions were related to what did we spend public art money on in the 2012 bond programs and 2014 bond programs. So this slide talks through the 2012 bond program. We've issued all $400,000 related to the 2012 bond program for public art. All of those funds were related to transportation, so it's public art that has something to do with transportation. And they all flow through the public art committee for approval. And you can see since 2012, and since we've started issuing the bonds related to public art, we've had the 97,000 for the North Texas Boulevard Medallion and then 228,000 for Brinker 288 Road Medallion. We still have 74,000 unallocated from that. >> What is that? Brinker 288 Road Medallion? >> I remember, but do we know what that is? >> It's, somebody can probably say it more eloquently than I can. >> This was a long time back when this was here. >> What is it? >> The, on the second one? >> Yes. >> It's, it was a similar concept to the two medallions that the city installed on the I-35 corridor by North Texas. And those, that option, that concept was presented to the public art committee to look at that. And give a recommendation as to how to proceed. So it's basically following the same premise. >> Well, has that been approved? Has, what it is, what is it? I guess, what did they approve and does that come back to council for approval? >> It will be coming back to council. I have not approved it. And a lot of it has to do because of the reconfiguration of Brinker and the overpass and how that's going to get, how that's going to actually fit within the textile design. >> Okay. So we still don't know what that is. We have a recommendation. But when will that be coming back to council, do you think? >> That I don't know, but we can find out. I know that economic development was working through that project and so, but we can follow up and provide a report to council. >> Yes, go ahead. >> I guess I'll comment on it for now, since it is part of the discussion. You know, of course I'm curious to know what that, what those things are. But for me personally, whatever it is will be a hard sell as much as I love public art and art in general because of the dollar figure and especially considering what our needs are in terms of housing. That is, for me, that's a personal litmus test in making decisions. So I would have a hard time with that, but I look forward to finding out what people had in mind at this time. >> Well, and this may help you. These were bond funds that were approved by the voters, specifically according to our public art policy that can only be spent for public art policy. So you certainly can vote how you want on it, but that money wouldn't be able to go to the items and the things you're talking about. >> And let me also interject too. >> I understand. >> That Tony just whispered in my ear, that's a placeholder. As you see on the 97,600, that's actually money spent because that's a project that's been completed. And then the second one is a placeholder. So it may not cost that much, but it was just a placeholder of that. >> But these monies can't be spent on anything that's not defined in our public art policy pursuant to the bond programs per the voters. They can't be used for things other than what we are defining as public art related to the particular bond initiative that they were voted for if it was inclusive of the bond program at the ballot box. Is that correct? >> This is Tony, point of the chief financial officer. You're exactly right, Mayor. And the way that that read was it was up to 400,000. So if for whatever reason those dollars aren't spent on public art, they could go into some other street project within that 2012, so it'd be street rehabilitation. So, but again, as Mario said, currently that's a placeholder. There's some reconfiguration that's gone on that may change what that looks like. And so again, we're having conversations with the public art committee now. And ultimately, whatever recommendation they make, we'll come back to the council. >> Okay, you bet. All right, thank you. >> All right, yep. >> So here's a breakdown for the 2014 bond program. And again, this is all funding, these aren't actual expenses for each of these categories. Money that has been set aside for each of these projects that's gone through the public art committee. And these were broken up and this was after the change to the policy where it was on vertical construction. So all of the vertical construction related to public safety and parks and streets had money designated for it in the bond programs. We've issued 505,000 so far of the 535 up to 535 associated with public art in this bond program. The remaining 30,000 is for streets, and that will be issued most likely next year in our final geo issuance for the 2014 bond program. So you can see for public safety, we have the 9/11 memorial bell tower that has funding set aside and then spent, and then for the PD Burke's sculptures, the 9.3 thousand. Still 62,000 remaining unallocated from public safety. From parts, you can see the projects there with 40,000 remaining unallocated. The dog park sculpture and the Bella soccer park sculpture are items for consideration this year that the art committee is considering. So we just put that on here to show that the public art committee is discussing those items. And then the James Searls sculpture also has had funding from hot funds over the years to go towards that sculpture. Questions? >> So again, coming back, trying to get some guidance on, if you'd like to give guidance now on the public art piece of the charge, you can. Right now, the resolution is written somewhat broadly to keep it an open discussion, just saying public art will be considered by the committee. If you'd like to give more direction at this time, we can put that in the charge itself. Yes. >> Can you help me understand what was the rationale at the time for making a ratio between the amount of public art money and the amount of projects that it's attached to? I just don't understand what the rationale is. >> Sure, I don't know the entire history yet. >> Repeat your question. >> Well, why is public art a percentage of some other thing? Why isn't it just developed like any other budget, like here are the things we think we want to do. Here's reasons why we, you know, the list goes before. >> Refresh my memory. >> Well, I'll try, Mayor. So really back in 2006-ish, whenever the original public art policy came into play, there was a survey that was done of various other places. And I think what the committee found was that when it came to utilization of bond dollars, that was kind of the average range that was being used by a number of other communities. So that's why they landed between 2 to 4%, again, just kind of keeping that flexible. In addition, in 2013, this additional language was put in place to kind of give council a little more flexibility as to whether or not they even wanted to consider public art at all within a proposition. And so again, gave the council, gave future councils that flexibility. But again, that 2 to 4% really came on what other communities were doing, not just in the Metroplex, but across the state and across the country. >> So I think part of it was, in fact, you've sort of rattled my recollection a little bit, is that there was a hesitation to put a separate public art proposition on the ballot of, let's say, half a million or a million dollars simply because people could vote against it. And so the proponents of public art felt that because other communities did it, to have a 2% or 4% that would automatically be included as public art within that ballot proposition, would give some assurance of funding for public art. Whereas, for a council to pass a $400,000 or $500,000 budget for public art, I think that would be difficult, especially in this time. But the council put this in, this new language in, because they didn't want it to be mandated. So that this council could decide, when you're talking about public facilities, such as fire stations, police stations, you're talking about roads and all those things, if you want to utilize all that bond funding for those projects, you don't have to say that 2 or 4% of that will be for public art. So it was really more of a funding mechanism sort of built into the bond program without having to separate it out, which you could separate it out. You could say, hey, we're going to provide a million dollars for public art. And then people get to vote on that separately. So it was just more of a, I think, a strategic move. Yes, yes, a packaging, yes, absolutely. Is that helpful? Okay, Council Member Arbiter. >> And I'll just say, it's kind of more for the public record than anything. But what I will personally be looking for, as far as these public art monies, is to see how these monies benefit people who are of low income and/or homeless or on the verge of homelessness in our community. Which includes, by the way, a number of our artists. So I would want to see, I could be convinced by showing that these are efforts that help fund our local artists. Many of whom have a hard time paying their rent or including, I'm not trying to come up with the ideas, but just to give examples to show, you know, my objection was to the idea of just kind of some road medallion. But I know, I trust our art community to come up with really creative ideas that benefit people in our community in a number of ways. I just wanted to make clear that I'm not against this public art fund, just that it matters the actual substance of it will make a difference to me. >> Well, and I think that's why we have a public art committee, because these things are all funded, they're all recommendations from the public art committee that then come to council for either approval, denial, or some type of change. So I mean, ultimately, it's guided by what proposition is it in, and then what do you actually have laid out in the policy as it goes toward the art committee. >> I'm not really questioned, just a comment that I really have enjoyed some of the art that has gone up. And it makes what a mundane road would be, you know, it makes it nice and really pretty when you drive through it. So I think so far, the committee has done well with the arts that they have initiated, and the Councilmember Amritra brings up a good point. I don't know, and this may be something you get back to, I mean, is there a requirement on the artists that they be locally, or is that something that the public art committee talks about, not that our ordinance says? >> There's nothing in the policy that says that. I think that could be a consideration for the art committee, just like anything else. >> Okay, thank you. >> Councilmember Meltzer. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. >> You're good. >> I don't mind the idea of putting forward a public art proposal that we need to defend, and that should stand on its own. I think there are very good reasons to have public art. To make Denton attractive, even just if you don't care about art at all. If you want Denton to be an attractive place, and also if art includes performance venues, I would say commerce generally follows art. And if we want to be an attractive place for people to visit, that's a source of sales tax revenue for us. If we want us to be an attractive place for people to relocate to, if we present well, that's part of it. So I think we ought to be able to defend that. And I would also support the idea of incorporating the notion of supporting local artists. Because that's part of Denton's identity. >> Councilmember Husspeth. >> Thank you. One thing, I'm fine with it, given the option. But I would ask if we could add an option, if there's traction to add some language that would then lead something kind of what Councilmember Briggs has led on. And I think it applies here better. A percentage of the bond going to purchase land. Because when I think about green space, because when I think about this mechanism is going to increase development, it's either increasing the thoroughfare goes hand in hand with development. So kind of a counter balance to that, we're saying, hey, we're going to improve traveling. But at the same time, preserve green space where we can and kind of use that. And then when you're talking, using these numbers, that 2%, so it's 400,000 to then have a rest area. To have something that kind of beautifies this new pavement we're putting in. I think those two kind of serve as counterweights. And I think this community, as it develops, would get behind that. I don't know what others think, but that's kind of, not to say I want to mandate, but I would like it to be an option for them to consider. And I don't think those two are mutually exclusive. I think if you can purchase a piece of property and put a fountain there or something, I think those two can go together. So I think it can be an art purpose with just kind of a general purchase of green space or preserving trees or grove of trees, that sort of thing. So I don't know what the traction is for that, but I'd like to see traction there. >> Okay, so help me understand something. So I think what I heard you say was, okay, we've got this 2% to 4% if council decides, because our options are we can say, hey, 2% to 4% of the bond program will go to public art. We can say, none of the bond program will go to public art, based on this situation. And then I'm hearing you say that, is there a way that we can work in some kind of additional classification, like we've got public art here, 2% to 4%. Do we say 1% or 3% or whatever the percentage is for open spaces? And I'm okay having that conversation. I would be reluctant to have that conversation for this bond proposal because we're sort of right on the front end. But if it can be done, like you said, a fountain, something that's public art and green space combined. Because this was vetted quite extensively as far as getting this kind of component in the bond program. But I think it's a good idea. I think it would be difficult here, because then you're just going to start adding to those numbers, and then you got to start picking and choosing. And I think it's a worthy policy discussion. It just seems like we're almost, I don't want to say we're running out of time, and the bond committee can consider anything, quite frankly. I mean, so they could consider that. >> And I think that's where I'm going, is to say that this is an option, right? So not to, I don't know what that, obviously it may require some language structure. But I think it could be as simple as, here's a bulleted list of things that fall under this category, right? And so, if you need me to come up with a creative definition of art, then we mow it in circles. >> I want to see you come up with a creative definition of art, absolutely. >> Then I'm absolutely happy to do it. But I think, yes, so I think absolutely sensitive to the timing of it. But if there's some way to give guidance and say, whatever that is, these are your options. And I do agree with the vertical construction versus just total package. Just if we're to that point. I mean, I think it's a percentage of vertical construction versus a percentage of everything. >> Sure. >> I would just add, you know, to get outside of the vision, right now the policy is written in a way that really kind of focuses on visual art. So if you were going to expand it to some degree, it would probably be a change to the policy, the public art policy itself, so. >> May I? >> Briefly. >> I'll just, it's a simple question, but watch how complex the answer is. Define visual art, right. So then I think a bulleted list that says, hey, this is an option, would be appreciated. Unless you can give me a strict guideline. If you email me a definition of art, then I'll consider it. >> There's a definition of some guidelines. It may not be all inclusive list, but there's an exhaustive list or definition of what that means in the ordinance. I'm pretty sure, because I remember seeing it, I think, either this presentation or so. Well, he may not be familiar with it, because he's just, I mean, he's, yeah. >> In the follow up to some of the backup questions, we kind of listed out the way that it's described in the policy itself. But I think there's probably more criteria that our committee looks at to see if it meets that quality. So I think any change would, you'd want to get with a public art committee and make sure that we're all on the same page. >> So all I need is just that list, whatever it is. You're telling me there's something documented, send it over. >> Okay. So as mentioned earlier, public art is kind of broad, is broad in the ordinance right now to move forward with setting up the committee. And here's some of the options that we looked at last time that you can consider the 2 to 4%. Having it be a standalone proposition, amending the policy to allow for the other alternatives, or any other, or just not including it, whatever. If you have a direction at this time, or we just kind of go forward with it like it is now. >> Let's go with Council Member Briggs and then Council Member Armitter. >> I'm okay with option one, and I just, I'm curious because I like what Council Member Esbeth said. But in our list that we started and allowed the bond committee to go over, open space was one of them. And so I think it's within their purview to just kind of talk about open space. And when you mentioned art and open space, I thought labyrinth. Like how cool would that be? Anyway, so. >> Good. All right. Yep. Yep. I mean, just, yeah. Council Member Armitter. >> And I support option number one. >> And I myself would prefer leaving it up to the bond committee to decide that what percentage between two and four. >> Okay. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. >> I do have a question because on the, we were showing what we've used in the past. It looks like the public art has to be directly connected to what it is. So if we're talking about vertical construction, the main vertical construction, we're looking at our public safety facilities. Does that mean that all this public art has to be at a fire police station? >> The way it's right now, if we went forward with, so if we kept the policy the same and went forward with the proposal from last week, you're correct. That would only apply to the public safety proposition. >> Okay. >> Because I'm okay with option one, but I'd like for us to look at the ability to do that at just public facilities as opposed to just public safety facilities. >> If that makes sense. >> Well, I think that would require a change of the policy if that's what the policy says. Because I know we went over that extensively when this was originally talked about back in 2013. >> If you wanted to get outside to kind of expand it, I think that would involve a change to the proposition itself to not have it so to say public safety facilities. If you said something like public facilities, but that may get away from looking at it. >> The way to get away from it is it has to be a stand alone bond proposition. If it was a stand alone bond proposition, then you could use it, it's not restricted to that. At 2 to 4%, at least that's my understanding. You know what, I tell you, let's take a five minute break. Yeah, let's take a five minute break and we'll come back and wrap this up. All right, welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council, April 23rd, 2019. It is 4/27. We are on agenda item 2C. Okay, so we're looking at, we're talking about option one. The question was brought up about does the art have to be used for the public facility that it's associated with? >> Sure, and so I would just add some clarity to that. I think as we look at the policy, we could probably rewrite the policy in a way to make it more flexible. Or we just say the 2% is a total amount and then we step back and decide, hey, we want to apply that 2% to a different proposition. I think that would be obviously a policy change. We probably want to talk to the newly formed bond committee as we go through that, get their input, come back to the council and decide what works best. So I think there is flexibility in there once we step back and look at the policy on how we want to change it. >> Okay, all right. >> Good. >> Okay, so we're trying to give you direction. >> Yes. >> I've heard a couple of people okay with option one, is that right? Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. >> Yeah, I'm okay with option one if we look at the policy of changing it to allow it to be used elsewhere. If you go back to the, you don't have to go back to it, but we've spent $270,000, $65,000 on public art at public safety places in the past. Since we do not have any parks that we're looking at this go around, it'd just be nice to have that flexibility with those funds. >> Okay, sure. >> May I, Councilmember Archer? Option one. >> I'm for one with the flexibility. And I would ideally like to see an effort to chin up a list just like we do for roads. Or the kind of targeted things where we expect to make expenditures. And I would include, at the risk of repeating myself, sorry, something for infrastructure for performance spaces. Whether that's indoor, like at Central City All West, or outdoor, like within Quaker Town Park. >> Okay, all right. >> Hesbeth, Councilmember Hesbeth. >> So I am option one, and then you've heard the other conversation. >> Yep. >> So, yeah, that's just a- >> Who decides the two or 4%? >> So right now the charge is written broadly. If you'd like to, you could- >> Bond committee decides that? >> The way it's written now, the bond committee would come after the recommendation, correct. >> Yeah, I'll just say, I'm more inclined right now for the 2%, because $1.7 million is a lot of money. And we haven't even spent everything we've done already in the '12 or the '14 bond program. So until we get a more clear direction on, if we want to consolidate these funds to get some kind of bigger performance venue or things such as that. Then, yeah, that's just, yeah, and I'll piggyback on Councilmember Armitage's comment that it's a lot of money, and we still haven't spent it all, and so, yes, Councilmember Duff. >> Yeah, 2% sounds much better for me, God. >> Okay. >> That's plenty of money. >> Yeah, those can be comments that would be reflected to the bond committee, and they can take those under advisement as their decision. Councilmember Briggs? >> I'm for option one, like I said, but I do like the flexibility that was mentioned as well. I don't know if that would be bond committee coming back to us, but I would also like to send the 2% to the bond committee, that that would be a preference of mine as well. >> So I think, Mr. City Attorney, I think what I'm hearing is that we're sending this direction to the bond committee, but currently there's a desire to maybe create flexibility in the current public art policy. So can we do that sort of in parallel fashion with the bond committee's deliberations? And then if we come up with something that's different, that still would apply to the November bond election, those new policies and others. If that policy's in place prior to the bond election, then we are okay with the flexibility. >> Of course. >> Okay, all right, all right. >> Okay, clear direction? >> Yes. >> All right, fantastic. >> Thank you. >> I believe that concludes our work session items. So I will be, just as a housekeeping matter, I will be recusing myself from a closed session item, it's 1B. So we're going to move that first and let Mayor Pro Tem handle that with the gavel. And then I'll come back and sit in at 1A. So I'll go ahead and at least open the closed session. We will now adjourn our open session. I will now convene the closed session at 432. We will consider the following items. Consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071. Deliberation regarding real property under Texas Government Code Section 551.072. [MUSIC] >> Council on Tuesday, April the 23rd, 2019. It is 632, our first items on the agenda is our pledge to the, we got a pledge to our US and Texas flag. Sorry, I had to turn to my agenda. Please stand with me if you're able, thank you. >> Okay, before we start into our agenda, I just wanted to make the announcement that we do have staff outside to answer any questions individually for the public hearing on the development code and the public hearing for the DDC and the zoning map. So if you have individual questions, they'd be glad to help you out before we get to that. And if you still have comments, you certainly feel free to make them, but you might get your question answered. So if you want to take advantage of those services, they're right outside the door and be able to and be glad to help you with anything if you have questions on that particular item. We're also going to move agenda item four, the items for individual consideration. I think we can move through those fairly quickly and we're going to move those up first in front of the public hearing because I think we have, let's see, we've got two postponements and then we only have two public hearings. And both of those look like it have to do with the development code and the zoning map. So we'll go ahead and call let's go into the consent agenda item first agenda item number two is our consent agenda. Mayor Pro Tem, I move approval of the consent agenda items except for items A, B, C and G. All right. We have a motion for Councilmember Meltzer. I'll second. We have a motion and a second for approval of the consent agenda items except for consent agenda items to A to B to C and to G. And we will take those up as items for individual consideration after action on the consent agenda. We could vote on the board, please. Consent agenda passes seven zero. We'll now move on to items for individual consideration from the consent agenda that have been pulled agenda item to A is considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing the city manager or designee to execute a confidential confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement between the city and Saturn Power Corporation. What Mike just got really turned up. So, Billy, if you know, can you all hear me now? Is it better? OK, good. All right. So consent agenda item to a. Is there a presentation on that or no, no, no presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. So we had two recusals, Councilmember Meltzer and Councilmember Armitage, so we don't have a staff presentation on that. Councilmember Huston approval. Mayor Pro Tem second. We have a motion and a second for consent agenda to a, which is now item for individual consideration. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries five zero. If we could bring the council members back in, I'm going to go ahead and go to G because I think we're postponing G. Is that correct? Yes, sir. We will bring that back on May 7th. All right. So the only other remaining consent agenda items that we need to consider for individual consideration are items B and C agenda item to be considered option of an ordinance directing the publication of notice of intention to issue nine point one million dollars in principal amount of certificates of obligation. Councilmember Armitage, you have a question? Yes. So I just wanted to say I had asked to have this item have these two items pulled because of the huge price tag attached to them. So if you could just please talk about them for council and the public. Thanks. David Gaines, assistant finance director, and I'll address items to be and to see in this presentation briefly. So the purpose of the notion of intent is for is by state law, all certificates of certificates of obligation that we issue. We have to give a thirty one day publication notice of our intent to go forward with those certificates of obligation. So that's what the purpose of this item for you is today. Here's a breakdown of our CR certificate of obligation funded projects this year that we're planning to issue in June. We have nine of approximately nine million dollars for general government and technology services projects and seventeen point six million dollars in utilities projects related to electric and water and wastewater included in these issuances are some issuance cost. And those are included in the notice of intent as well to round those up to the nine point one and seventeen point six million dollars totals. Here's a detail of our general general fund obligation and technology services projects. Each of these projects have been have proceeded to move forward with reimbursement ordinances that council has previously passed. But this is to actually issue the CEOs in June. So in total in nine million dollars, these were projects either budgeted or that went through the reimbursement ordinance process. Here's a breakdown of our wastewater projects in total of nine point eight million dollars. Again, all of these projects were in our in our eighteen, nineteen budget. Be happy to answer any questions if you have any on these projects. Council memorandum, you're still showing requests to speak. Do you have a question or OK, go ahead. Yes, I did. And so you mentioned in the slide show that this has already been before the audit and finance committee, but just for the benefit of the public. So this went before council as well. Correct. The general fund, all of these projects on the general fund list came through as reimbursement ordinances and utility projects came through as part of the budget process. And then just on April 16th, the audit and finance committee approved all these to move forward to council. Yes. Yeah. And so I wanted to pull these just to make that clear to the public that that number one, that this is just about an issuance of notice, public notice. And number two, that that that this is not just being arbitrarily placed on a consent agenda, something with such a high price tag that this had gone through council as well as the audit and finance committee. Thank you. Thank you. And here's a detail of those electric projects that are also included on the utility side totaling seven point five nine million dollars. And again, these were in the in the eighteen nineteen budget. We've also included just for reference here and it was included in your information as well. What we plan on issuing in general obligation bonds with this issuance, it is not required to have a notice of intent for general obligation bonds as they're associated with bond program. But we wanted to to reference those because those will be coming back on June 4th when we bring the entire bond bond package. So these are really to close out as our fifth year of our 2014 bond program totaling nineteen point three million dollars in actual project funding. And you can see the breakdown there of transportation, drainage and parts projects that are included. We also have issuance cost about three hundred and ten thousand an issuance cost in addition to this when we come for an addition to nineteen point three when we come forward. So our next steps will come back on June 4th to set the parameters of our bond sale and get approval by city council and then we'll move forward on with the dates listed for the actual sale of the bonds that we're moving forward with. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? OK, thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, move approval of agenda item to be council member Briggs. Second, we have a motion and a second for agenda item to be a spot on the board, please. Agenda item to be passage seven zero agenda item. No, yes, to be to see consider adoption of an ordinance directing the publication of notice of intention to issue seventeen point six million dollars in principal amount of certificates of obligation to the city of Denton for wastewater system and electric system projects. I think that's just what we went through. Yeah. So the presentation was on both of those items. Mayor Pro Tem, move approval of item to see. Council member Husbeth. Second, we have a motion and a second for agenda item to see. Let's vote on the board, please. Agenda item to see carries unanimously seven zero. We're going to move now to agenda items for for individual consideration agenda item for a consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton of Texas home home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager. To execute a contract with jail public company for trucking services for various city of Denton departments. Evening council mayor Daniel Kramer, deputy director of operations. So basically this trucking service contract that we're looking to implement is for the supplemental to help out with our current trucks that we use in the city to get our road construction projects and everything that we try to get done through the city. It's a five year not to exceed one point three million dollars mill and overlay and base failure crews are the main users of this contract, which is our own processes, not any of our bond processes. The contract is used to supplement our current city trucks. We usually have four to five trucks per day out there running back and forth so that we can keep them running, keep the mill running, keep our paving operation going with that too. Concrete, we either haul it to last chance concrete or ready mix is the two places we drop that off and millions for asphalt that's usually put into our lot at the service center and we use that as we go through for different projects coming up. We use it for some of the country roads that we maintain for extra that we use it for temporary driveways while we're doing projects and so forth. It's also used by other city departments. The majority of them is the streets department where we use it, but water waste water does use a small percentage of that when they need extra hauling for that. So basically, I wanted to show you one of the main reasons that we use this is during our milling process. The mill right here is constantly running and we want to keep it going as much as we can. So with our current load of trucks that we have in our fleet that is owned by the city, we actually have to fill the truck up and then he has to drive off and dump and come back. And then we have a mill sitting there idle while we're waiting for that or we dump it on the ground and then we have to go back and scoop it back up and handle it twice. So that's why we usually keep the trucks running so we can keep rolling and keep constantly moving. Same thing with our paving operation. As a truck backs up and dumps the asphalt in there, we do use them at certain times to haul asphalt back and forth, but that also keeps the process going and keeps it moving when we use that. Couple of questions. When this went out, we also, when we sent the bid out, we sent it out to 503 bidders. It was also placed on the material management website for the current bids and there were only two bids that were received on this. And Jayco Public, who won the bid, was actually $9,500 a year cheaper than the other bid. So, are there any questions? Any questions? Councilman Meltzer. I don't know if you can offer an opinion on this, but why do you think we get so few bids and is there any changes in the bidding process contemplated that might change that, you know, that kind of result in the future? Currently, she's going to answer the question. So yes, we do have some changes contemplated. The reason we send it to so many is we use both the states, it's called the CMBL list, though it's the state centralized master bidders list, and also the suppliers that are registered with the city's supplier registration database, which is why you see the 503 bidders. We try to get a wide variety of potential bidders. We also advertise in the newspaper as well as on our website. We recently conducted a vendor satisfaction survey and we found out that a lot of vendors that we actually do business with every day are not registered in our supplier database, so we're going to be reaching out to them and specifically getting them registered in Ionwave. So they see these bid announcements and then we recently purchased an electronic bidding software, which will give us the ability to see not only how many bids were sent out, but also who opened them and then how many bids are received. So it'll give us a better a better picture of who's actually looking at our bids because right now they're going out through email. So we don't know who opens them. Thank you. Council Member Arbiter. Well, I was going to ask that question, but also another question now that that's been answered. On the bid tabulation sheet, there's a column that says, "Est annual quantity." I guess that's estimated annual quantity. If you could explain exactly what that means, because the figures between the two companies are very different. So what those are is your basic. I apologize. Let me pull this up. So that's basically your hour total. So this is a per hour contract. So we'll pay for the trucks for certain amount of hours. They'll come out however we need them. If we have rain, we have whatever we just pay up to the end of the hour and we can send them home at the end of the day. But when you look at your estimated qualities, that's what we're looking on average through the past of what we use for the hours based on what we're looking at with the increased activity and what we're going to be using going forward. OK, thank you. One question I have when we see these not to exceed these five year not to exceed amounts, is that one point three million per year? Is that the amount over the full five years? So if they exceed that within a year or if they get up to it within before the five years expires as the contract is fulfilled and therefore it's extinguished, is that correct? If we get to that point, we're putting a new bid together and we're soliciting it and bringing it back to you. Fantastic. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. Yes. On the image, you said that the trucks take the concrete to either of two places. Correct. All right. So is that do we pay for that as well as a separate item or is that included in this bid? That is a separate currently last chance concrete. We do have a three bid that we went out and got three bids for them to run that as we're working on a full bid to go out so that we can get a full contract for them to use them. Ready mix also, they recycle a lot of it so they take most of it for free. If you can bring it down there, it is a little bit longer drive, but we do bring it down there sometimes when we need to and they'll take it for free. When we need to for free sounds a lot better. I agree. They're right outside of Lewisville. So depending on the time of day, we try to avoid that. And they recycle it as well. So that cost would be an added cost upon this. That's not included in this tabulation. Last chance for right now, what they're doing is fifty dollars a load is what their cost are per truck. That's about 13 tons. Thank you. Would we if we were using our own trucks, would we utilize those two services that you just mentioned last chance concrete and ready mixer? We just take it to our own landfill. Oh, we would still utilize them. Yeah. So those costs are going to be paid whether we're doing it or somebody else is providing the trucking services. Correct. Yeah. OK. Any more questions? Seeing none, Mayor Pro Tem. We have approval of item four A. Any second? Council Member Hudspeth. Second. I didn't know a second was that funny. All right. All right. We have a motion and a second for item four A. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries six to one agenda item three or excuse me, four B. Consider approval of a resolution creating a special bonds advisory committee for the proposed 2019 bond election, establishing a charge for the committee and declaring an effective date. Good evening. This is a follow up from our discussion earlier in our meeting last the council meeting last week where council gave direction to move forward with the 2019 bond program and established the referenced enabling resolution that you have before you today. The goal of this resolution is to form the committee itself and provide a charge to the committee on what projects and broad parameters laid out for the committee as we move forward with the bond program. So here are the roles of the committee as laid out to make recommendations on projects and amounts to meet regularly and utilize staff to further vet and discuss capital projects. And then it'll it'll work towards August when we when we formally move forward with the election and then dissolve after election day. The charges that we have that we have currently in the resolution for the committee based on ours are not direct the direction given last week are to consider a program with public safety facilities, major roadway improvements, local street improvements, street lights, sidewalks and park and open space for consideration in an amount not to exceed two hundred and ten million dollars. Here's a tentative timeline we have for the bond election. Today we would would be the passing of the enabling resolution. We have a tentative date set now for May 29th as the first committee meeting. Obviously that's subject to change as we move forward. But from that meeting forward, we would anticipate meeting weekly with the committee as needed to as decisions are made. So I will open it up to any questions with this resolution. Council member Armitter. Let's see. Will there be a process? And if so, what is it for citizens to make their thoughts, comments, requests? What have you known to the bond committee? Sure, we can have a public process during the bond committee meetings themselves and obviously at any City Council meeting where we have the item on the agenda as well. What about, say, if they want to submit something in writing? That could be submitted and we would consider it. We will definitely set up a public information campaign. So is it any ideas? Let them respond to the proposed package and share that with the committee members as well while they're deliberating what to recommend to council. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Council member Melzer. Doesn't public art need to be somehow formally included in this based on the conversation we had? Currently it's included, but with broad language is setting forward to the committee to consider public art based on the conversation we had earlier. I think the direction was to just advise the committee on the discussions the City Council has had. If you would like it as far as the 2% and the broad discussions about changing the policy to some degree, if you'd like anything more formal, obviously we could make it more formal in the resolution either now or later at a future meeting. Just that it wasn't on the list of items. It's in section 9 of the resolution. It's in the resolution. Okay. I think to your point though, council member Melzer, if you want to provide a cap of 2% or whatever, we could certainly add that in. I'm sure the city attorney could help us with that. So your call, or if you want to leave it open ended, we can simply communicate where you were. Yeah, my thought would just be to include it in the charge to consider a list of items including public art. Would that be included in the resolution? Because in the policy, we've got it to include public art, but you're saying to make it more specific in the resolution. Yeah, just so that it's clear that it's to be considered. Are you saying the actual cap of up to 2% or? I'm not requesting that. Okay. I think you're just talking about in general. Okay. Okay. Any other questions, comments? All right. Chair would entertain action on this item, agenda item 3B. Mayor Pro Tem. I would move approval of item 4B, amending section 9 to say 2% maximum on public art. Okay. Is that also including Council Member Meltzer's thoughts or recommendations in your motion or it's just the resolution plus the cap of 2%? I thought we had cap here. What else were you? No, he was saying just added in a list of the things that the bond committee considers as public art. He wasn't necessarily addressing the cap. He was just saying to put it in there as a list of the things that the bond committee would consider, which is public art. I'm fine with adding that. Okay. So take the cap part off of your motion or no? I would like to have the cap in there because we're looking at quite a bit if we went to a 4%. We're looking at 1.7 million. Okay. All right. Okay. Council Member Briggs? I'll second. Council Member Armitage. I wanted to ask a question about that. I guess it's a point of procedure. If this goes forward to the bond committee with a recommended cap, does that limit them in any way? Does it limit their power to recommend whatever they want? In other words, does that cap carry weight? Does that make sense, my question? Mr. Attorney? Yes. If that's included in the resolution, that will be the cap for them to consider. 2% of the total, 210 million, if I'm not mistaken, will be the cap. Of the vertical construction? For vertical construction, there will be a cap of 2%. However, it doesn't mean that they may not come back to the council and request that maybe that be increased, which would involve an amendment to this resolution to do so. Okay. And so just to clarify, so if that happens, of course, hypothetical, I just want to make sure I know what I'm voting on. And if that were to happen, then it would be up to council to decide on that. And it would be no difficulty. The process to do that is clear, not extraordinary. That is correct. But before we actually call the election, you have the opportunity to amend this resolution to make that change that you've described. And I'm fine with it. Council Member Meltzer? I'd like to offer a friendly amendment that as part of the charge that the bond committee be made aware that according to staff estimates, bond package up to $100 million would not require, would not result in a tax increase. We'll definitely lay that out, if it's in the resolution, that's great. But we'll definitely lay that out, the tax rate impact of any changes with the bond program. He proffered a friendly amendment, so I want to ask the movement, Mayor Pro Tem, is that something that is acceptable to you on a friendly amendment basis or no? Yeah, I'm fine with it because as stated by staff, it's going to be put out there to the bond committee regardless. Council Member Briggs, are you okay with that? Yeah, I'm okay with it. Okay. All right, so we have a motion and a second for passage of agenda item 4B with what I believe to be three additional items. One is that in the charge that it be stated that $100 million or less bond package would not require an increase in the tax rate. Number two, that public art be part of that list of things that the bond committee can consider and that, as such, a 2% cap on the amount of public art approved for vertical construction within the bond program. Does that make sense? All right, is that? Not actually tax rate, but tax. Tax increment, tax increase, yeah, well, yeah, because $100 million wouldn't require a tax, yeah, tax increase. We need to make sure we get that clear because average property tax bill, is that what you're? Yeah, because it could be that we, I guess what I don't want to do is put something in here that all of a sudden be based on external forces, you know, two or three years later that somehow make that statement untrue and that somehow we're not held to it, so go ahead, Council Member Briggs. Which is why very specifically you said according to staff's estimate, right? Okay, yeah, all right, good, thank you. Okay, so motion is clear for everyone. All right, let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0, agenda item 4A, consider appointments to the special citizen bond advisory committee for the proposed 2019 bond election. When do you want those nominations finalized by? I think the 21st, if we're going to go through for the 29th, May 29th is our first meeting, I think May 21st would be a good date. Okay, I thought I saw, okay, Council Member Armitra, I think I saw yours up first. No, that was a holdover from the last one. Oh, was it? Okay, I'm sorry, Council Member Briggs. So if we have a nomination, can we make it now? Yes. Okay, I have one, Jennifer Collins. Okay. So you've got one, is it, we're only doing one, right, per Council Member 2? We're doing two, but I have one, but in District 2. Okay, and are they required to fill out the application that we typically have? Okay, so let's make sure whoever we're nominating that they go ahead and fill out those applications if they have not yet done that. Council Member Armitra. And I have two nominations, Janata Montgomery and Tammy Bradley. Okay, so Council Member Briggs, has your nominee completed an application? Not for this board, but there's one on file. Okay, and Council Member Armitra, what about yours, do you know? I know one has, I'm not sure about the other. Okay, just want to make sure that we get them in, yep. Council Member Meltzer. I just have the one nomination tonight, and I'll follow up to make sure on the application. Council Member Duff or Husspitz, do you all have any nominees for the... No, sir. Okay, okay. I have one, Pat Smith, and I, oh, I'm sorry, you did have one, I'm sorry. Yeah, Peggy Capps. Peggy Capps, okay. So, Council Member Duff nominates Peggy Capps, and I nominate Pat Smith, and I'll make sure that he gets that application in. And then all those that haven't nominated to will be working on ours, yep, okay. All right, so we have those nominated, could you repeat those names if you have, did you get them read it now? Sure, I'll just repeat the names only, Jennifer Collins. Council Member Marmotor, you wanna... Janata, J-A-N-A-T-A, Montgomery. Janata Montgomery, thank you. Tammy Bradley, Karen Devaney, Pat Smith, and Becky, I'm sorry, Peggy Capps. Peggy Capps, okay. So those are the nominations to consider on this agenda item. So let's, do we need a motion for that? Yeah, okay, Council Member Marmotor. I move to approve. Council Member Briggs. I'll second. All right. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries, seven, zero. And, all right, thank you. That brings us back to our agenda item three items, which are the items for public hearing, agenda items for public hearing. Agenda item three A, public hearing has been canceled, is that correct? Yes, all right. Agenda item three B has been postponed 'til some other time. So we will now move to agenda item three C. Where's Scott? Question of process, not to speak, are these not, okay. On the, did they call them both together at the PNZ or did they call them, they called them separately, didn't they? Two separately, so we'll walk through the development code first. Okay, gotcha. All right, I'll go ahead. All right, so we'll go ahead and call agenda item three C, which is hold a public hearing and consider an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas approving and adopting the newly revised Denton development code, superseding and expressly repealing chapters 31, 34, and 35 of the 1991 code of the City of Denton, Texas as amended and leaving all other chapters intact, superseding and expressly repealing the existing 2002 Denton development code as amended, establishing a penalty in the maximum of $2,000 for violation, et cetera. I'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing so I don't forget to do that. So the public hearing is now open. We will hear staff comments and then take questions for staff and then move into our public comment portion. Very good. Thank you, Mayor, Council. My name is Scott McDonald. I'm the Director of Development Services. Really pleased to be here this evening with you to have the Denton development code before us. A couple of things that I'd like to address. I have our consultants here from Clarion and Associates, which they have a brief presentation. Just wanted to address that we provided a memo with a series of documents, and I just wanted to outline the purpose in doing that. We have some comment cards that we had received after Planning and Zoning Commission. We had been working with our Development Review Committee over the course of the past year and a half, and after going through P&Z and taking some public comments, we had a number of questions and comments that we needed to address, so we made some minor corrections. We had a couple of more substantive changes, which were to the R3 zoning categories proposed, which included triplexes and quadplexes and duplexes, and we're moving that as a result of the DCRC, or the Development Code Review Committee. We have made another change, which has not been necessarily put through or discussed in the committee, which is for the zoning classification of R4. So current NR4 allows for single-family, duplexes, and townhomes with an SUP. The proposed code also added in triplexes and fourplexes. We have revised the errata sheet, or updated what we're saying are edits to the Development Code that you have before you to remove triplexes and fourplexes. So the errata that you have has a lot of housekeeping items, no other substantive changes other than what I'm proposing this evening, which ultimately I've vetted with our staff and our public feedback and had talked with the chair of the DCRC prior to the meeting. I just wanted to make sure that that was clear in as far as the documents that you have before you. You also have four maps, sorry? Councilmember Armitage, I believe, has a question. So I want to ask, just for clarification, not just for me, in fact, not so much for me, but more for the public in general. So as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, the rationale behind that recent, that new change in the draft proposal for R4 is because of the idea that these recommendations are supposed to adhere as closely as possible to current codes, correct, to what is currently on the books, right? Very well stated, yes. We're trying to reflect what, in fact, they have today as to what it is that we're proposing to do and in that that didn't seem like the reasonable thing to do and that's where we're having this conversation today. Not to say that we're not going to come back to the development review committee to discuss some other housing options or whatever that might look like, but that would be a text amendment if, in fact, the code is adopted this evening. We just want to get this out of a draft state so we have a solid code that we're working from and then we can talk about any specifics, i.e. that type of thing, at a later date. Exactly. And that was going to be my next question or kind of point for confirmation. So just to reiterate, to make sure I'm understanding correctly and can explain clearly to my constituents that this is not the end, but it is the end of this stage of the process, right? That it will be that the codes will or at least may or will likely be coming forward to be adjusted to meet whatever the changing needs have been since the old code, but right now essentially changing the language, changing an NR4 to R4 and then the next step is actually changing the substance if indeed that ends up happening. If that comes to be absolutely correct, absolutely correct, so we're just trying to be true to our word. We've been very consistent in trying to say that what we're doing is really trying to change that classification without having any detrimental effect and this more closely aligns with that. So again, I want to make certain that we're just clear that what we've presented in the draft code is corrected on the errata sheet and also within that packet of information that you have is a letter from our contract council. So we've hired a land use expert to help us through this development code process. It took a lot of time. She had also recommended that where we're at as long as we have no substantive changes beyond today that if we have edits or we're trying to adhere to our current policy or procedure that would be approved through our city attorney's office, they would approve to form. When you say this contract that's included in this packet, do you mean this new packet that council got today? A letter in there from the attorney recommending that we approve after her review of what we've been working through. Yes. Okay. So that'll be the next document beyond the cover page. Okay. And these have just been given to council today, so we haven't had time to read it yet. Absolutely. No, these are just the updates and again, that's why I wanted to address that substantive change and that letter will address the point from her that we will continue to have edits and that the city attorney will validate in fact that those are non-substantive corrections. So where it is we may have a page number incorrect or we might have a wrong section or a reference that we're going to correct those and our desire to get this adopted is that as we have more users with it, it is our trial period. This gives us an opportunity to make sure that the code is going to function before it's an effective code. So the effective date is October 1. This gives us an opportunity, a trial period like I say, to make sure that we've got the best possible product. So her recommendations in there again is that our city attorney would be validating if in fact the changes are non-substantive and if they're substantive, then they will come before this body again. Thank you. Council Member Briggs, I thought I saw you would draw your question. I will draw. It was just a comment that up until that point, if there needed to be a change, we still have our process of the zoning change that if the SEP was there and then removed, there's still the process where one of those types of uses could be implemented through the regular change process. Correct. All of our customers will have the opportunity to run through the normal processes. I will be bringing something forward to continue the DCRC so we can continue that committee until in fact we have an effective date on the code as well as that those changes would come before P and Z as well as Council when we talk about zoning changes. So we've got a number of processes and certainly we want to continue to be transparent and make sure that everybody is aware of what we're doing. So Scott, just a real quick question. When you say that in R4 that duplexes and townhomes will still be allowed, will they both be allowed only with an SEP or is it only townhomes that requires an SEP? I believe, and Richard can validate this for me, I believe it's just on townhomes. I think duplexes are allowed by right. I just want to make sure that that's validated. All right. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. And then like I said there's four maps. A couple of these maps have not been seen as of yet. So one would be that in fact if we adopt the code that map would be effective tomorrow. We will publish that tomorrow and replace the map that has been out there as the draft map. It will be more reflective of the transition table and we'll talk a little bit more about that. And then we also have a preliminary map of what we believe to be the first of the city initiated rezonings and we'll have more to come, especially after the feedback we've received this evening. Councilmember Armitter. Okay. And so just to clarify, so these maps that you just referred to are also in this packet that council just received at the meeting today? Correct. Okay. Correct. And it's just a tool of reference. Okay. That's the only purpose. And we'll be publishing those. Okay. I myself, just to make a comment on that, and I appreciate getting these documents, I myself will be suggesting that we postpone the vote, not the public hearing, because I want to get all that input from people who are here and weigh it. I also want to make sure that I have time, and I think council should have time to read all these documents because we've been at a meeting all day, haven't really had time, including the forms filled out at the last meeting in opposition or favor. That may or may not change the vote, but it'll at least ensure that council has read everything that we're voting on in addition to taking in the feedback from. Absolutely. And, you know, just as a reminder that you've received the vast majority of these documents. These are just the most current. Exactly. Up until today, we took every comment that we could and put it on the sheet so that we have that. So I don't want you to think that this is something new. The transition table existed, the maps we've worked on and would have been seen, I think, through DCRC, not necessarily by council. I don't think that we've provided that necessarily to council because we continue to adapt those as we get public hearings at P&Z and what feedback we get here this evening may reflect in that as well. So any changes to this code can be made, if in fact it is adopted this evening, up and through October 1st because this will not be the development code. We continue to have the existing development code. This is that, again, running a parallel path and the zoning map, we will not be or we're recommending not to take action on that this evening, two separate pieces. And that's largely the feedback that we've received is what that reflection of the zoning map is. That's why we want to certainly carry it on two different tracks and to address that. Thank you. And I want to mention, by the way, that you all have done a great job of providing us with all that public feedback and extensive pages and pages of backup, which I read for today. So it's just this one, this segment of the most recent feedback that we haven't gotten. Sure. Sure. Thanks. I understand. So either do, I'll let our consultant, Matt Goble from Clarion Associates, speak to the development code status. Thank you. Thanks, Scott. Mayor, council members, good to see you again. I'm also excited to be here. It's a milestone meeting. So we're happy to be at this stage. I do have a brief presentation. It's just really to remind you all kind of why we're here and what we've accomplished. You've seen me plenty of times. We've talked about this quite a bit. So I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but I think it's a good time to just kind of memorialize kind of some of the key steps that we've gone through. Remind you about the overall project goals. I will go through these in a little bit more detail in a few more slides, but really implementing the Denton Plan 2030 is originally why the project began. And I think it's one of the most important things that we've accomplished. And I'll cover these other bullets on a few other slides. Implementing Denton Plan 2030 is where I wanted to start, though. The community spent a lot of time and a lot of effort and resources on developing a city-wide vision for land use policy for the future. You did not have a good set of tools in your current zoning regulations to implement that. And so I think kind of moving from the left to the right, moving from the Denton Plan with its high-level future land use map into a more specific development code that actually translated those policies into specific regulations that applied city-wide. And then moving further into the next item that you'll hear on the agenda, the zoning map that applies those rules to individual parcels, it's a very important transition for the city. And just as a few examples of some of the things that have been accomplished here, there is a whole cleaned up set of zone districts that you've seen on all the zoning maps that have been put out there. A lot of cleanup in terms of consolidating similar districts, introducing new mixed use districts, a lot of rethinking and clarification of the uses allowed within those districts. So a lot of important work has been done just to clean up the overall kind of fundamentals of zoning districts and land uses within the city. I wanted to talk a little bit about the goal of user-friendliness. And sometimes I kind of skim past this in other communities, but I want to really drive it home in Denton because the current regulations have had a lot of challenges. You've got multiple conflicting ordinances that have been out there that have led to challenges both for staff and the development community. There have been real problems with just kind of the intelligibility of the current regulations. And so we've done a lot of just nuts and bolts in terms of better organization, consolidating subdivision, consolidating subdivision, all those kind of related ordinances under one cover with clean tables of contents, clean organization, better graphics, things like that. It's a better tool for good government to make sure that everyone understands what the rules are for development in Denton. I just really wanted to emphasize that this ultimately will be accompanied by the repeal of a lot of those separate conflicting ordinances that we mentioned, which is a very dry part of the presentation, but it's a really important part of the overall kind of success of this project for the city. Looking back into the substance of the code, tailored development standards. One of the things that we've really tried to focus on is moving from a one-size-fits-all approach for the city of Denton to something that recognizes that you're a big, complex place with different character areas. The downtown needs different standards than suburban corridors, for example. So this whole category of issues is very broad, covers everything from protection of sensitive areas and land disturbance to parking, providing parking on a site and providing appropriate landscaping, and then into the vertical development of building design standards, things like that. This section of the project, I just can't understate how much is here and how important all these things are. The actual drafting of the code has been accompanied by a really significant effort outside the code by your staff to update all the criteria manuals, which provide a really important tool to actually effectuate this on a very kind of granular level. So this is a good example of how the code is going to complement a lot of other good work that your staff has been doing. Modernize the development review procedures. This is another big one. When we first started the project, we talked to a lot of folks in the community, a lot of folks that had done development projects. We heard concerns about the transparency and the consistency of the review procedures, wanted to make sure that everyone was treated fairly and consistently, played by the same rules. So we really kind of worked with you all to update the fundamental kind of steps and how every development application is reviewed. You can see a graphic there on the right of how there's a standardized set of common steps that apply to every type of application that comes through. It's much more transparent. A lot of other things have been done here. I mentioned that we folded in the subdivision procedures so they follow a similar track as the zoning procedures as well. We have done a lot of kind of folding in of updates that the staff has been working on, like historic preservation procedures have all been updated and cleaned up. We've introduced new tools to try to make the procedures more efficient and streamlined, like a minor modification tool that allows minor deviations to be considered without having to go all the way up to a public hearing process. So a lot of thinking has been gone into trying to modernize and make the procedures more efficient and effective. So that is a whirlwind tour of some of the substance, but I think it's important just to get that out there for the record because a lot has been accomplished. You know the process that we've gone through. We worked through an iterative process where we developed the code in three different stages. And for each of those stages, we worked with your staff to develop the material, first of all, but then we took it out to the public, and we took it out to public meetings. And importantly, we worked with you all as part of the Development Code Review Committee to kind of really ensure that the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Council had early and frequent input into all these ideas as they were being developed. All that turned into the consolidated draft, which was then revised again, turned into the adoption draft, which we've now been considering for the last few months. This is just a little bit more detailed calendar about the final series of meetings that we've gone through since the first part of the year. Consolidated draft and the zoning map have been carried forward concurrently. However, I'm just speaking to the first of those items, the Zoning Code, the Development Code. And the zoning map is part of the next agenda item. You've had work sessions on all this material simultaneously, many opportunities for public comment. Again, additional work sessions that you all have been participating in, and then now we're at the final stage on the right of the slide with the public hearing process. Just to summarize all that, there's been a lot of meetings. A lot of folks have had an opportunity to weigh in. We've got a lot of good feedback from the public, a lot of good feedback from folks that really know these issues well. I think it's made it a much stronger document. You can see the overall summary there of meetings. And this is just since 2017. And we've had even meetings before that that started earlier than that date. Now, even with all those meetings, even with all that feedback, still not perfect yet. We're still fine-tuning. We're still cleaning the document up. So I wanted to speak again to something that Scott mentioned in his introduction, which is a set of cleanup items that you've all gotten a copy of. You got an errata sheet a few days ago. We have provided you in this packet tonight an updated version of that. We're calling it cleanup edits. That's a little bit more than just errata. And I can just cover again what's listed there. It's mostly housekeeping stuff. We're just cleaning up the details, clarifying some ambiguous language, formatting and typos. Cross-references are always an issue with a large document like this. There are a few places where we have to identify the need to clarify and carry forward current practice and existing policy. That's always been the case. This is really an attempt to kind of clean up the system, not rethink the system fundamentally. And so those are important clarifications. Ensure standards are in place to guide administrative decisions. This has been an important focus point for the contract attorney that Scott mentioned earlier. Making sure that when we have identified opportunities to delegate decisions down to the planning staff that there are appropriate standards in place to guide them and that those are not unfettered discretionary decisions. Reorganization of oil and gas to reflect current structure. Simply doing some cleanup there to maintain the integrity of what you all spent so much time to adopt in the past. Making sure that we're not changing any of the organization of that piece. In addition to the housekeeping. >> I just want to mention for the public, the public who's seeing this about the oil and gas reflect current structure. That does not mean by any -- correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm right. This does not mean by any means that our discussion of ongoing discussion about reverse setbacks is over with simply that that was not the purpose of the work that is being done here is to just kind of clean up -- clean things up and reflect the current code. So I don't want people who have issues with our current gas well ordinance to feel that it's somehow being cemented and fixed as it is here in the code. Is that correct? >> That is a correct statement. >> Thank you. Scott mentioned that there are some substantive edits based on the DCRC recommendations. He mentioned what those are. It's the change from -- it's the change to the R3 district regarding the housing types that he mentioned, duplexes, triplexes. As he mentioned, and this is covered in the materials that you've gotten today, the final DDC is intended to incorporate all of these and related edits as approved by the city attorney. There's been language provided to capture this whole kind of set of housekeeping edits in the final adoption language. That's the cleanup for this adoption draft. I just wanted to put this slide up here again. You've seen this before, but I think it's really important to mention, as Scott said, this is the adoption, but the effective date is intended to be October 1st. That provides an opportunity to incorporate these edits and to integrate any other additional fine-tuning things that need to be done. Those repeal ordinances that I mentioned need to be finalized as well by October 1st. It also just gives the staff a chance to kind of test the code on the ground and make sure that your frontline counter staff is really comfortable kind of understanding how they're going to answer all the questions that they get. So this kind of lag period between adoption and effective is very important just for kind of practical purposes. We think it's very important to track the effectiveness of the code moving forward. We've talked about this before. See what type of applications come in. See where requests for interpretations are made. See where requests for variances are made. Just make sure that the code is as user-friendly as we think it is. You will need to clean it up. You will need to always kind of think about opportunities to fine-tune. It is a living document, very much so. We have talked about this issue of additional housing types, you know, the missing middle housing types. That's just a very good example of a place where policy discussions need to be had that probably will result in changes to the code in the near future as well. So just can't emphasize this enough, it's a living document. With that, I think that's my presentation. I just want to close by thanking your staff. They've really taken ownership of the code, which in our experience is always a really important and crucial step to making sure that it's an effective document. You all have spent a lot of time on this. They have spent a tremendous amount of time really kind of understanding the nuts and bolts and we consider it a success when the staff considers it their code. So that happened here. So thank you all. >> Any further questions for staff, for the speaker, for Clarion? Seeing none, thank you. We've got about 20 cars, but this is a public hearing, so anybody can speak. So what I'd like to do is just take a five -- I don't want to sort of take a break right as we get started, so we're going to take about a five-minute break so we can sort of push forward through as many as we can. We'll recess and adjourn back here in about five, ten minutes. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on April 23, 2019. It is 739. We are back in session. We're at our public hearing portion of our agenda. We're on public hearing agenda item 3, 3C, and for those sitting in the back, I was just informed that transform or something burst or malfunctioned, and so the speakers at the very back aren't working correctly. So if you can't hear, just would encourage you to move up. That's what the technical staff was telling me. So if you can hear okay, no problem. I just wanted to make that announcement. All right. We're going to move into -- we've got comment cards, so what I'll do is I'll go through the cards first, but this is a public hearing, so anybody can speak on the agenda item. So once we get through the cards, we'll then ask anybody wishing to speak to come down and give us your name and address, and your time will begin at that time. The first speaker, what I'll do is I'll try to do this process, but if I fail, forgive me. I'm going to call the first speaker, and then I'll call who will next be up after that and try to roll through that so that everybody sort of knows where they are in the queue. I'll probably mess it up, so I ask your forgiveness in advance. And so if I miss your name and somehow I call your name and then I skip it, just raise your hand and we'll get it all squared away. Lee Allison will be the first speaker, and after Mr. Allison, it will be Richard Kelsey. And this is for the code. We've got two different -- this is for the code, and then we've got one for the map. So some of you have filled out cards to speak on both, so I'll call you, and if you could just limit your remarks to the agenda item that we're on, and then we'll call you up again for when you want to speak about the map. And again, I may mess that up as well, so just bear with me. Yes, Mr. Allison. >> As long as you're not using my time. Thank you, Mayor. >> I just did. Dock him about two minutes for that comment, please, Madam City Secretary. Yes, go ahead. >> Good evening. Lee Allison with Allison Engineering Group. I'm here to speak on behalf of the Denton Community Development Alliance in favor of the new development code. We realize that it's not a completely finished product, but it is so far along and so much better. It's time to put it into the pilot program, if you will, full-scale pilot program stage where there's an opportunity to have projects come in, get started under this code with the opportunity to look at the other code and have some relief, provide some real-life examples because it's hard to write a code that meets the needs of developments in North Denton and South Denton at the same time, that meets the needs of a two-acre development and a hundred-acre development, that meets the needs of the residents and property owners all across the town. That's just almost impossible to do. And I appreciate all the time that the Council collectively has put together in workshops and hearings. The Council members have put together individually on committees that staff has put in. Don't care about the consultant, they got paid, know how that works. And a lot of the community members and the reaching out to the community and the different elements of the community, it's just been well done and rightly done. Yes, there are things to be discussed and other things to be considered. And Ms. Armitage, your comments earlier, I can relate to them. I serve as a Council member on another small city, probably not much more important than a subcommittee to a subcommittee of this Council, but I can relate to that and the need to understand what is fully in a document before you vote on it. Sometimes you have to trust in the expertise and professionalism of the staff and the consultants and help move something forward and I think this is one of those times. At the same time, you don't be led blindly by the staff. It's okay to ask about the timing of yellow lights on signals and challenge the staff. It's okay to look at zoning of historically significant properties and question if there's ways we can better do things. And one thing I like about this staff and the Council has brought in Mr. Heilman and he's brought in others, they ask the questions that never got asked before in the past. Who, what, when, why, how, and where. What is we doing with all this and what makes sense for our community? There's a number of things that still need to be cleaned up and addressed. That'll happen over time. I appreciate the period until October 1st. I hope that's enough time and I hope that the Council is resilient enough and flexible enough to allow that time to be extended later, if it need be, if it need be. And then there's items in there that maybe we all still want to discuss, but they're really not appropriate for this time or under this part of the process. They're important to the city. They need to be brought up, but under different venues and different ways. But let's work together, get this code out there. I'm sure that most of the members in the audience are really have micro interest in the code. In other words, what's happening to their specific property and trying to understand it. But let's come together and I think you all have is work together as a community. And even though I don't live in Denton, obviously, and I can't vote for any of you, I am a property owner and do pay taxes here. So hopefully that helps carry a little weight and appreciate all that you've done and look forward to moving this forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Husspeth. Thank you. Lee, one quick question. So are two. How many members does your organization have? It varies from time to time between 30 to 80. Mostly it's just people working in the development community and it's a variety of property owners, developers, property managers, it spans a big gamut there. Got it. And I just want to say one comment. So for my time on planning and zoning, to hear your feedback is significant because in other conversations kind of around this similar topic on planning and zoning, the answer would always be it varies. And so to have you here succinctly saying, hey, I'm okay with getting this, it's to a point where we can start to test it out in real life scenarios carries a lot of weight for me just because I understand exactly what you said, the different dynamics you're talking, you know, one acre to 100 acres, single family to multi-family and all variations in there. And so that's prime for the answer, it depends. And so but for you to give a succinct answer like you did and get to a point where you're ready to test it in a live scenario is very informative. So thank you. Sure. Thank y'all. Mr. Kelsey, and then next up will be Cliff Tender. Cliff, I have it. Okay. Good evening, all of you, and some of you I've met before, some I have not. My name is Richard or Dick Kelsey, most people know me as my wife Ann. She owns the two properties that we have involved, but I don't want to be specific at first. First thing I want to say is I want to thank you all for the encouragement that you have done to get the community involved. We have been to every single meeting that you all have sponsored. We have gotten great responses from the staff. I want to compliment them. We had specific issues. Ron spent over an hour with me just walking through the issues and trying to explain how the new code worked. This is the third time we have been through this in the 52 years we've been here. What we ended up with after the 02 code is we ended up with a property that was a nonconforming use because it was classified as downtown dress shop would be and is three quarters of a way on Fort Worth Drive out by the interstate. We said, but wait, we don't have dress shops, we've got tire companies, we've got people leasing our units out there. They said, well, we've had a problem because the old code used to be that they just kind of have a word out there. It was a geographic code, but then each property was kind of given maybe a variance or maybe an SUP or maybe a PD and it eroded the predictability. One of the things that this code does offer all of us is predictability. This time we have a code that has been thought over, it's been made flexible and thank you for that because one size does not fit all. That's why I think you should really give serious consideration to passing this code because if people can come into Denton and look at a code, go to your staff, discuss the code and understand exactly what is expected of them and what their chances are. If they want to bust a residential neighborhood, they need to know what the code says about that. But in the old days it used to be they complained with the 02 code, oh, well, it's too personal. If it's a good guy and everybody on the council knows them, they get a variance, they get a PD or they get an SUP. So all that I'm hoping will gel with this new code. But I particularly want to thank you all for all the help. I will tell you that with the two properties that we had involved in this, one with nonconforming use since 02 is now going to come into conformity and thank you very much for that. People don't understand economically what it does to your property when you're permitted to operate it as rental, but if you try to sell it, borrow on it, and it's a nonconforming use, it's not marketable, it's not lendable, it's severe damage to the value of the property. But this code is actually going to clean that problem up after the last 17 years. So we thank you for that. We also have the property of 2225 East McKinney. I know you all have staffed on that. And we want to thank you for the staff work that you've done on that. I think you've realized that it's true that one size does not fit all. They were going to have us to over one to five lot coverage ratio. And it just wasn't going to work economically. So I just want to again tell you thank you. I urge you to go ahead with this code, but at the same time, I couldn't agree with Lee Moore. He incidentally is going to be our engineer. And please be as flexible as possible. Urge your staff to be flexible. And that's what I see. For all the years before we got new management, it was almost a can't do attitude in Denton. You can't do that. You can't do that. We lost a lot of good possibilities with a can't do attitude. But what I'm seeing now is a can do attitude. And thank you all for that. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. So I'm going to call Cliff Tender one more time. I know it was reported he was gone. I just wanted to make sure he was gone. Yep. Okay. Well, yeah, I understand that. But we can't. And there's another gentleman that's got a card to speak on. And we can't do that unless it's for a group. So for the gentleman who spoke to me later, we've got his card and we'll read it into the record. But just consulted with the city attorney. So So then the next speaker up will be Catherine. Is it was back? Catherine here. 1918. Poinsettia. Okay. The property owner, yes, do not put commercial dwelling in our district. Okay. All right. Then the next speaker will be Lenny McAdams. And then up after Miss McAdams will be Reagan would Mayor and members of the council, thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. I appreciate the work that has gone in on this new code. And I think certainly that is going in the right direction. I want to talk about a part that's slightly different. And that is I moved here in 1957 when there was about 25,000 people. We've grown a lot, and I've seen that growth. And we haven't always been prepared to move to the next step. My concern now is with a question of the homeless. And I don't mean those people who need a shelter because they will always exist. But we are virtually pricing out of the market, many low income families. And we have to think of some alternatives. The popular right now is the tiny house craze. And there's also some of you might not be aware of the 3D building where a 3D printer literally builds the house. Don't look at me like that, Mr. Mayor, I don't have my glasses on, so I'm not sure. We don't know whether that will work or not. But it is one of the things that they're working on. But what I'm concerned about is that we look ahead. We don't know what our city is going to look like in the next 20 or 30 years. But we do know we want to house all of the people that live here, the people who have money and the people who don't have so much money. And we can be leaders in developing or at least finding the type of housing that will suit those people and allow them to live in our community. We are not going to be just an upscale community, it's too late for that already. But we want to find methods of housing for more people. And I really would appreciate it if the council would consider appointing a committee to work with staff on looking at the alternative types of housing that are available and how they might fit into our neighborhoods. Nobody wants something in their neighborhood that they're not familiar with. But I think that if we took the time to study the various proposals and present them to the neighborhoods, each neighborhood getting a chance to look at our alternatives, people might be more accepting than if they're just faced with something cold and they don't quite know what it is. But I think it is very important for us to find a way to house our people. Having people sleep on the street is just unacceptable. And many children now are having to double up or triple up with relatives and what have you to find a place to live. And we can do better than that. We are better. And if we take the time, I think that citizens from throughout then, together with staff, can look at what the alternatives are and propose something that will be acceptable to all the citizens. Thank you very much. >> Councilmember Armitage has a question or comment. >> A comment and a question, first brief comment. Thank you for mentioning that subject near and dear to my heart and also a top priority for this council established last fall when we had our council retreat. So my question is, are you aware that we have heard from and have, I believe, is in the ISR and formal staff report that our community development department is looking into adding into their budget request for this coming year a consultant to assess our housing needs citywide, as far as I know this is something that has not been done before, and to potentially include an inclusionary zoning assessment as well? >> No, I was not aware of that. I think that's a wonderful move, but I emphasize that it needs to include citizens from throughout the community so that they're familiar with what we're developing as it gets developed. And I could not agree with you more on that point, but thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Lenny. All right, Reagan Wood is our next speaker, and then next up will be Pam Spooner. >> My name is Reagan Wood. I grew up here in Denton my whole life. I even played quarterback for Denton High School even, so I'm probably the youngest one here. The young community does care. I'm also a local realtor here in town, and I live in the Oakmont community area, and one of the biggest things that's a concern with our HOA as well as other, you know, the other Wheeler Ridge across 2499 is the storage building. I know you guys probably have multiple discussions about it. And when the storage building on 2499 got presented to our HOA meeting, he -- I don't know if you know which one I'm talking about. It's right across from Pine Hills. >> Next to the car wash? >> Yes. >> Yes, okay. >> Which I'm not even going to get into the car wash on that one. But anyways, when he presented the pictures and the drawings, the architectural drawings, if you look at his past projects and you look at his past projects in Frisco and Prosper, the one in Frisco looks like a chateau, and then the one in Prosper actually at least has retail on the front side, so it doesn't look like a storage building. And I think that a lot of homeowners are concerned that 2499 is going to turn into Fort Worth Drive where it's not really, I guess, community friendly. And I think more people would like some type of retail stores of some sort that they can shop or go to eat or something like that rather than just staring at a storage building. And that's just one of my concerns as well as I know this is -- you guys can't do anything and it's part of -- what I've been told, no speed limit. Still after a year on 2499, apparently it's supposed to be 45 miles an hour. There's no speed limit after a year now. When I first moved in, it was quiet. It was crickets, birds, and now it's -- I feel like I have I-35 right behind my house. And also in the development code, and I hope that you guys are enforcing or inputting stricter language as to what can and cannot be built. Like I was saying, on the architectural side, it was just as cheap as you can go, slap it on there, and we're done. And then also on the bidding process, I mentioned this to one of your city managers, 500 bids and you only got two back. That's pretty bad. When you're talking about millions of dollars and you're just sending out a mass email, I mean, how many spam emails do you get a day? You get tons of spam emails, right? Well, as a business owner, you know, I get spam emails all the time, and I don't check my spam folder. I just don't. There's software out there that you can leave mass voice mails, and I guarantee you if I was a general contractor of some sort, that I would be returning the call if I got a voicemail, whether it was a mass voicemail or not. So anyways. Okay, thank you, appreciate it. Thanks. Pam Spooner, and then Mary Anderson will be the next speaker up. Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. I live in Councilmember Briggs District. Now, I was asked whether I wanted to speak on this or the next item. So if I'm speaking at the wrong time, I'm sure you will let me know. But my background is my career was a college librarian, so accurate factual information is something I know about. And my guidance of many, many thousands of people over my career, I'm very proud of that to factual information, accurate information. So my question, my comment is about the two definitions of R3 and R4. Now, would that come under this piece or the next? Okay. Yes, yes. Okay. So bear with me. Y'all might like to look at your materials. I don't know. But for the definition of R3, R3 District is intended to preserve existing single family neighborhoods. Okay. Skip a little bit. The R3 District can be used as a transitional district between large lot residential neighborhoods and medium lot residential neighborhoods. So my home, my neighborhood is definitely a single family neighborhood, but we are put into R4. R4's definition says R4 District is intended to accommodate a variety of housing types on small lots designed to encourage walk-in-the-neighborhoods, blah-de-blah-de-blah. This zoning district will ensure existing neighborhood character is maintained while serving as a transition area between established single family neighborhoods and mixed use neighborhoods. So if we're the transition, it doesn't sound like we are a single family neighborhood or a mixed use neighborhood. We're just a transition. So I don't see the definition of R4, really, because you're not calling this an existing single family neighborhood because that's R3. We're just some transition. And so I just want to make that point that I think your definition is very unclear about R4. Okay. Councilmember Briggs has a question. Hi. Could you make sure and give your address to the staff so that we can look at that area? Okay. I do know that we had some changes with the R3 and R4 when we originally talked about it after adding R6 and R7. Some of those uses that were allowed in the -- that were not allowed in the past were allowed in this code and we have corrected that. Okay. So it's more equal to what is existing on the ground, but I would really like to look at that area and make sure that we're not doing something different than we were in the past. Because it's very definitely a single family neighborhood. I'm sure it is. Yes. I feel the same way. Okay. Yeah. All right. Any other questions? Any other questions? And you still have a little time left if you still have additional comments. No, but I reserve my time for later. Thank you. Okay. All right. Okay. Mary Anderson. And then up will be -- Jackie. Sorry. All right. Thank you, Jackie. Hi. Mary Anderson. I'm in the historic district and I want to thank the mayor who was born and raised down the street for me and all the council members and staff for all the work they've done for this code update. Did you give your address? Oh. On Oak Street, 924. Okay. Yeah. The first person didn't give his address. No. I think we need to -- And therefore I'm kind of concerned that he did not. So everybody should. Yes. Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. Even if they're a business person, they need to say where they live. Yes. But it's true, isn't it, Gerald? Thank you. I have a few concerns. Mostly I'm concerned about the overlay. But my concerns relate to SROs and Airbnbs. I keep hearing, oh, we're going to fix that. You know, let's do it right the first time. Fixes ain't been working too good on the ethics committee. So let's get it right on the code. Okay? This code is too important. Developers want to read it. I can't read it. I asked questions downstairs of staff and they couldn't answer them directly. They had to keep looking at maps and stuff. I'm going to read it. Okay. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. So those nearly need to be regulated, SROs. We've had enough Fry Street and all the stuff that goes on with that. I think clarity is not here. Things are going to slip through the cracks. Everybody's saying, let's fix it. Let's fix it. Let's fix it fast. Well, things slip through the cracks and we're going to have to live with them for longer than the rest of us are alive. There's a lot of ugly buildings in Denton that got slipped under the cracks, like this gentleman said about this storage building. It's not going away anytime soon. So I don't want you to rush this. I want you to model it. That's what computer programs are for. Go back and look at what's there now and would it have been allowed later? I don't think we have that big of an incentive to do this that fast. Why the rush? Rush, rush, rush, rush. Please put it off. Get it right. And let's make sure that we keep the character of Denton. I'm interested in the historic area and that's where I'm going to talk about the overlay if I can get that chance, but I'm concerned that there is a lot of, as our librarian, retired said, not a lot of data. I do data analysis a lot and I don't see a lot of data here. If I can't see what's going to be built in this area or what's the maximum, what's the worst damage, I'm not really interested in that. So happy to answer questions. Any questions? Seeing none. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Jackie, Fenster? It is Fenster. Yes. You're welcome. If you come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. And the next speaker up will be Michelle Berry and I've noticed that this is for both. So when Ms. Berry comes, if you'll just restrict your comments to the code, then you'll have another chance to speak during the zoning map. So yes, go ahead. Hi, I'm Jackie Fenster. I live at 2422 College Park Drive here in Denton and I appreciate the time to speak with all of you. My concern is some of the same concerns that she, the lady that spoke before me, had about the Airbnbs because these things are going on in previously single family residential neighborhoods and some of the uses are various things, parties, band practice, and of course that's always kind of gone on in Denton and the college areas and we understand that. But ours has been a primarily single family residential neighborhood. So that is a big concern with me and so I echo what she has said there. My other concern is that I realize now with the existing infrastructure that's going on with gas wells and things like that, but I do know that once they, I guess in the interest of clarity, it looks like you all are trying to also pass the ability to put above ground infrastructure, which to me denotes that there is the possibility that if somebody has oil and mineral rights on their land that they could then add the necessary above ground infrastructure to put in a working gas well. So I don't really have an issue with the existing gas wells that already exist, but if they want to go ahead and put some new ones in, I do have an issue with that and it looks like maybe something like that might be going on in my neighborhood in a field catty corner across the street from me. So there's concern there. Also my other concern was it does seem like you all did address in the R3 district, which is what I'm in, that you all are not going to allow duplexes and triplexes anymore, so I appreciate that, but it does look like you would still allow RV parks and now they're saying they're looking at all of this, but it's such a, we kind of are a different kind of neighborhood because we do back up to some triplexes. We do back up to some elder housing. We do back up to apartment complexes, so that already exists all around us, so I don't think that anymore needs to be added. And my other thought is that I've already seen that single family homes have been converted to these uses, such as group homes and/or turning a single family home into a fourplex, and so I guess my concern is if they hurry up and get it all done before you all pass this new code, does that mean that that would be allowed or is there anything addressing that? So I guess that's more of a question. I'm kind of unclear on that. Anything else? We've got some questions or comments for you. My other is just that you need to keep it, I agree with the lady that spoke before with me, is just keep aesthetics in mind, keep the character of Denton in mind, and please don't destroy the single family neighborhoods that exist and have been really nice and enjoyable to live in for the past 25 years. I realize the need to move ahead, move forward. Denton's growing, Denton's changing, but it certainly needs to be addressed in a more considered manner, I guess, is my main concern. So I guess that's it, and if you would maybe just address that question. There's several speakers that would probably wish to ask a question or make a comment. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I don't think I can hit all of that. I certainly share your concern for protecting established neighborhoods. Regarding gas well issues, kind of piggybacking on what Councilmember Arbiter said before, there weren't any, to make a statement, there weren't any changes that were made substantively to any part of that, and I think it's okay to say that in work session today we established that on April 12th, we were going to have a work session kind of top to bottom regarding our gas well ordinance. So yeah, that discussion is to come and to come soon. And then regarding Airbnb, would it be inappropriate to have staff give some clarifying remarks on just what the code says about Airbnbs? Yeah, but if we could, if we've got a couple of Councilmembers that are queued up, so if we could... Could be after that. After that, yeah. You bet. Thank you. Councilmember Arbiter, did you have a question for the speaker? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. Well, actually, you can sit down. Well, Councilmember Briggs, did you? More of a con... Oh, sorry. Well, I was just going to see if Councilmember Briggs had a question for the speakers. I wouldn't want to... Well, I think they've been addressed. I was going to ask staff to weigh in, and I was just going to comment as well the ordinance that oil and gas, with that, hasn't changed, but there is, if you are concerned, there is a way to look up if someone has filed a permit or not. I looked at that. Okay. But if it's existing gas wells, it doesn't allow... If you could maybe get behind the microphone, please. Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry. I looked into that because it doesn't... If it's an existing gas well, there is no notice required. And if you live within a specific, I can't remember, probably 250 feet or something, then they have to give you a notice of 20 days notice. And if you're just the general public, your 10 days notice is required. So that really doesn't allow to let you address that, if something like that's happening in your neighborhood, if you decided you wanted to move or change your situation. So that was my biggest concern. It looked like they were trying to add the ability to have above ground SECs and gas well infrastructure. So that kind of made me, alarm bell go off in my head. So that's all. Okay. Council Member Armitage? And just to add to that, I'm not going to repeat what others have said. You can sit down if you want or stand, whichever you want. I just wanted to clarify that, as I recall, it was July. Is that correct? That the day long... It's definitely not April 12th, which is already past. Yes, which already happened. I knew it wasn't that. Yes, but July, is that what we had talked about just today? Let me ask Scott to respond to that real quick. Yeah, real quick. Okay. So I heard a couple of different things, and one is on the Airbnb mean type, the short term rentals. We have new regulations where we have no current regulations today. So we'll have a right to inspect and register those properties no differently than today. Somebody can operate those. Additionally, when we talk about somebody converting single family residential, it's considered multifamily. So it isn't something that is necessarily allowed today nor tomorrow in some of those zoning districts that would be referenced. So that's why we have a very clear table to indicate where those types of uses would be allowed. Yeah, and I think the question was, the comment was made in work session that the question was asked when would the gas well discussion occur, and I think that was in July when they said somewhere. That's what I recall. Yes. So I think that's as clear as we can be. We don't have a definitive date yet. Based on April 12th. Yeah. Discussion. Or not April anything. Yeah. And just to add to that, the person who just spoke, I just wanted to say I agree that the current gas well ordinance is totally insufficient. As far as I'm concerned, I look forward to us having that conversation and it be filmed open to the public to come and listen and give us comments in advance. Okay. Thank you. All right. The next speaker up for both, which is this one's on the code, is it Ronald? Is it further? Michelle Berry. Oh, Michelle Berry. I'm sorry. See, I told y'all. Ask for forgiveness. Yes. Michelle, come on up. You're up next. Hey, good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. Sorry. No worries. Michelle Berry, 1730 Stonegate Drive, Denton, Texas, resident voter, property owner, John Ryan's district, so thanks for having me tonight. Thank you for moving forward to implement the Denton 2030 plan. I was actually on the planning staff when that was being worked through, so I really do appreciate that we're moving forward to implement that plan because it was representative of the citizens and it is something that we really do need to do. Overall, I'd say the DDC definitely needed an update, so this is definitely a step in the right direction. Very positive about that in general. I do have a couple of concerns, though, and that relates primarily to a kind of missing middle housing that's been talked about a little bit. And also the fact that requiring an SUP for it is required in the R4 district, so a duplex does require an SUP in the R4 district, per the draft. And that does make where I live, my duplex that I live in, I know the code says it's legal, but it really doesn't make it any different than legal nonconforming as far as I can read it and as far as I can think about as a planner how I would enforce that if a project were to come before me if someone were making a modification to that type of business. I'd also like to say that I think duplexes and triplexes and quadruplexes are great housing products that belong in the NR4 neighborhood and possibly even in the NR3 with SUPs, and I know I differ from a lot of people on that, but we do have housing issues and that is one way to help address that, because it's really a supply and demand problem. So I just wanted to make those points. So generally in support of updating the code, but I really do think we need to think through that keeping those things legal, because it's not really thought through and detailed, and so the way it's written now, it's going to rely on staff interpretations. Those change over time, and so I am concerned about that, because the devil's always going to be in the details when it comes to that sort of thing. So you've got a great staff, you really do, and so I just want to make sure that you're aware of that and make sure that you listen to them and you seek their input and guidance on these things, because they're great, they're well educated, they've got years of experience, you've got AICP certified planners on staff, so that's what I wanted to say. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you. Thank you for coming to speak. I did want to mention for all of you, and you mentioned it as well, that we discussed in our committee, and I thought it was going to get transferred into the code, that there will not be any non-conforming residential. All residential will be conforming. Right, but, so again, the devil's in the details, because if you take something that was developed under the old standards and say, "Well, it's conforming," but say I want to expand my add, like convert my attic into another living space, or say I want to do an expansion. The standards say I need an SUP, and then it says that I'm legal, and there's an inherent conflict there, and you've kind of built that into the code the way it is, and it's not clear how that's going to be addressed. That needs to be worked through, because there's so many different situations that could come up, and I know as a planner, reading through it, I read that language, but it doesn't actually do anything. Okay, so I want to make sure, and Councilmember Armstrong, I just need to clarify something here, and your staff needs to come up, I know that we talked about this, that if we put a condition in that, and it's not even whether it's duplex or commercial, but if you were a legal use at the time of the passage of this code, and an SUP is required in the new code, that if something happens and you get either destroyed in whole or in part, you can— You can rebuild as is. Right. But you can't do anything different. So you're not legal. It's really just legal and nonconforming with extra language. The only way I've seen other cities address this issue is by essentially keeping the existing code as an appendix, as a backup code, which is a whole can of worms, and I don't think anybody should go down that route, but I just, it needs to be more thought through than it is today. Okay. Okay. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, so I just wanted to thank you for speaking out just about your experience as someone lives in a duplex. I'm going to ask you a question you definitely don't have to answer, and I won't take it personal if you don't answer, but I was just wondering if you could just take a moment to let people know why you choose to live in a duplex. I love my duplex. I love it to death. It's in a great neighborhood. It's on a corner lot, so one unit faces one street. One unit faces the other street, so it's a great design, but I'm on a row of duplexes and they're all beautiful, and I choose to live in a duplex because my out-of-pocket housing cost for my mortgage is $400 a month because my tenant rents out the other side. My tenant is a great family. They wanted to sell their house while the market was hot because they want to retire to their lake house soon, but until they actually quit their jobs, they needed to live in the area, and so that's part of the reason we chose to live in a duplex, and we were raising our family in a duplex. It's great, and I lived in other neighborhoods and other cities in the country that had mixes of duplexes and quadruplexes and single family, and it can be done remarkably well, and I hope it isn't dead. Thank you very much, and you're not bringing more crime to the area. I called about some suspicious activity in the park, so we're definitely eyes on the street. Well, anyway, thank you for speaking, and I'll just mention again that there may be, of course, it won't be certain yet until council votes on it, but some sort of inclusionary zoning study coming later this year, depending on, you know, what gets voted on in the community development budget. So again, work in progress, it's all a work in progress. Thank you for speaking. Okay, Ronald, further? And those are the last of the cards, but then after that, we'll have anybody else wishing to speak on the code. We'll be able to come forward. Yes, Ron Furtick, I represent ecclesiastical equity. What I wanted to do is, I've been a developer for quite a while, I love planning, sat through an awful lot of charrettes, and the code and the background is so critical to the future of a city and how it evolves and how it becomes what it is the citizenry wants it to be. And I am blessed by the fact that I've been shown that you want to tailor the development standards because in the next portion, I'm going to have to ask for a map change. So, you know, I'll just leave it at that and let you get on with it. Okay. All right. So, these are all the cards that I have, but this is a public hearing, so anybody wishing to speak, come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. This will be for the agenda item 3C. Okey-doke, I'm Dana Zoltner, 610 Emory, Denton, sorry, I'm late to the party, but other things got in the way. I'm not going to take a whole lot of your time. What I've heard so far just really underlines for me that you're not ready to vote on this yet. There's just, there's too many questions. The map needs a better description, there's vague language, homeowners are not happy because it does look like, first of all, I'm grateful that you guys did what you did with R3, but that still doesn't protect our four neighborhoods, and these are neighborhoods, and yes, maybe we need more housing, but boy, I see lots of apartments rolling everywhere, so I don't feel like it's necessary to be putting triplexes in our four neighborhoods or fourplexes just because Denton supposedly needs more housing because there's lots of land, undeveloped land around here, and to go after the World War II bungalows and the 1920 craftsmen houses, and even the 70s and 80s houses that are in R4 is just, they aren't making it like they used to, and a two by four is no longer a two by four, so when you go in and think that these houses need to be torn down or changed, I'd like to see the language more specific, and I'd like for you to look at these neighborhoods with some humanity, and that's it. Councilmember Armitage has a question or comment. It's a question for staff, but you don't need to get up, or maybe you will, but even just a thumbs up if I'm right, or thumbs down if not, more complicated, you could come up. As I understand it, that staff has made the recommendation to change that aspect of the draft that you talked about regarding R4. Are you aware of that, or were you speaking to some future possible changes? Aware of the change for R4? Yes, as I understand it, staff has recently, well, now that you're coming up, may as well hear it from the horse's mouth. But the fact that the changes are coming, it seems to me like it needs to be the vote needs to wait until things are more solidified, although I appreciate including R4. I'm not an R4 person, but they deserve the respect that you guys gave R3. Thank you. And just as a reminder, we've went through this process for a year, we've gone through the code several times with the review committee, we've had about 37 meetings, and as a result of getting the public feedback from the last public hearing, we did in fact change R3 and we are proposing to change R4, and that is the only substantive change that we're proposing to this evening that hasn't gone through the review committee. To make it more in line with what is currently allowed. Correct. Similar to what's on the ground today. Thank you. Okay, next speaker, state your name and address and your time will begin. Hi, Jennifer Lane, 1526 Willowwood Street. The first thing I wanted to mention is that I was sort of surprised that the very first speaker addressed one of you by name. I thought that wasn't allowed. And I was a bit uncomfortable by that. And I would hope that the requirement not to do that would extend to business persons who are visiting the council as well as citizens who live here. The other thing then moving on to the specifics, I've been thinking for some time that I would really like to see, and I don't know what the planning is that may exist about this for an overlay district near 35 East Fort Worth Drive. This is because in recent times there's been a food desert and sort of a desert created by what's happening with UNT on the other side, and that area was used by both sides of the university and sort of connected into one large neighborhood. The area close to UNT and the area just across 35 between Fort Worth Drive and Highland Park Drive. And so I was wondering if there's anything going on there to create an overlay in the part of Fort Worth Drive that's closest to the freeway, so that those businesses that were over there, grocery stores and so on and so forth, restaurants, art supply, you know, kinds of things that the neighborhood was using and that the neighborhood right around UNT was using would be so very welcome and would enhance that neighborhood greatly. Further down Fort Worth Drive, of course, wide open perhaps to other kinds of business smaller, less neighborhood oriented. And then finally, I think anyway, I think an overlay district would encourage those kinds of businesses to thrive. And finally, I'm concerned a little bit that although I agree that there should be the proper time taken to deliberate and vote and read and assess the changes in the code, I'm also equally concerned that there'll be sort of a rush to build between now and when it's solidified, that there's almost a free for all that could go on and seems, at least to the general public, to be somewhat going on in terms of just sort of trying to get in there before the code is established. And I'd like to know, or I'd like to see how council is preventing that kind of opportunism on the part of builders who might be just grabbing a window before you get it done. That's it. Okay. Thanks. All right. This is public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Please come down and state your name and address. We've got a, oh, and I believe you already spoken before. Is that right? On this particular item, the code, is that right? No, no, not you. I'm sorry. Yeah. Come on down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the next agenda item. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Eric Pruitt. 2111 Westwood Drive. I hope you'll forgive me for reading instead of speaking. I'm a better writer than I am an orator. Sprawling growth patterns require large capital investments to add new miles of utility and roadway infrastructure and additional public safety facilities and equipment to maintain established response times. On the other hand, increased intensity of development in the city core makes use of existing infrastructure's excess capacity and the ability to share facilities like developing schools next to parkland. The compact development pattern of the preferred growth concept balances needs for capital expansion, maintenance, and service delivery with the development options desired in the community. It encourages a development pattern that will achieve cost savings by maximizing existing capital facilities, generate revenue from new commercial activity and a diverse housing stock, and increase the market feasibility of multimodal circulation. This plan identifies a community desire to encourage infill development and redevelopment as a means to slow outward growth, to create vibrancy in commercial districts, and to reinvest and stabilize certain districts and neighborhoods. This concept is first and foremost an issue of land use. Those are two excerpts from the Denton Plan 2030. That's the plan this code is drafted to give us the tools to achieve. I support the proposed code, but I'd like to speak to the challenges that may arise in allowing incremental development as Denton grows. I thank one of the council members for his comments last week explaining the history of allowing duplexes and triplexes by ASUP in this code's development. The preferred growth plan calls for over 4,000 new duplex and triplex units by 2030. In the last eight years, we've gotten about 250. All but 20 of those units have been at the outskirts of Denton, where increased infrastructure costs have still been incurred, not fulfilling the infill goals of the 2030 plan. I was curious and looked at three streets in the R3 neighborhood just northwest of downtown and west of Carroll, Denton Street, Coit, and part of Panhandle out to Fulton. On those streets, there are 38 duplexes out of 128 parcels. This is in R3. All but one were built prior to 1985. In the past four decades, when rent has increased dramatically, the code has not allowed incremental development of duplexes and triplexes in this area, which shows a clear demand for it. This code is a big improvement in many ways, but I worry that in areas where neighborhoods want incremental density, the high effort and high cost to obtain a full zoning change in areas especially very near to the core of our town to build duplexes will raise rents, increase housing costs, push development to the outskirts of our town, increase traffic, and put Denton in a less fiscally sustainable position due to a lower value per acre and a higher infrastructure maintenance costs. Assuming this code passes, what will you do in the near future to reduce the regulatory and cost barriers for zoning changes where they make sense to allow sensible incremental development in neighborhoods that want it to achieve the 2030 plan? This is doubly important now that we're talking about potentially removing SUPs allowing these types of housing in R4. If you just look at the map, there's downtown, there's R3 and R4 all around it. That's what we're talking about. As Denton grows, how do you see incremental development actually happening? Do you see 300 requests for rezoning by individuals who own a house and they want to increase that density? How's that going to work? Councilmember Armitage. I just wanted to thank you for those comments and I think they're important concerns and I think they will be addressed, can't say for sure, but I think so, and certainly the 2030 plan has a vision and just to reiterate again, this is just about making sure that we've got the new language to apply to the way things are now, but most of all I just wanted to thank you for making those comments. See no further questions. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. All right. This is still the DDC code public hearing, so anybody wishing to come speak who has not spoken on the DDC code, please come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay, we will now close the public hearing. Councilmember Armitage. I don't know if I'll have any seconders on this, but I myself want to move to postpone this because not because I don't think that the codes are an improvement, I do, but because we have received today a number of written comments in here that we all haven't had time to read, these came to us at an ongoing council meeting, again I want to make clear we have had the opportunity to read a lot more comments than this. This is just the latest batch of comments. So for that reason, I myself don't feel comfortable voting yes to this until I can look every constituent in the eye and I serve citywide and to say, yes, I did read your comment. So far I've read every single written comment that's been submitted and also the staff did excellent summaries of conversations that were not documented in writing, at least I think they're excellent. I haven't heard anything otherwise from constituents who have had their conversations represented as such in writing. So anyway, that is my motion to postpone to the next, if possible, to our next council meeting. Let's see if I have a second on that. A motion has been made. Do we have a second? Council Member Meltzer. Well, I'll second so that we have an opportunity to vote on it, but I'd also like to ask a question of the City Attorney. Would you represent that our legal staff has had an opportunity to review the code that we're potentially voting on tonight? And it is my understanding in discussions with the attorneys, three attorneys that have been involved on this, that we have done a topical review to ensure that it complies with Chapter 211 of the Local Government Code as well as other statutes. But yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second to postpone until when? Till the next, when did you say that was the next? Tuesday, May 7th. Okay. All right. Is there a second to vote on the board? Go ahead. Is there not time for discussion after a second has been made? Sure. I mean, is there discussion about the motion to postpone? Well, I have a question. Okay. All right. Council Member, we'll go with Council Member Husspeth. Is your comments about the motion to postpone? No, it's this topic, but I'll wait and see. Council Member Briggs. Yes. Well, I don't really want to vote unless I have my question answered from staff because in our backup we have 13 exhibits and most of those exhibits have what we have here. This is just a hard copy and I just want confirmation of the comments and I know the R4 was changed today, but I'm looking in our backup and the errata sheet seems to be the same. So I mean, what all are we asked to be approving today that we haven't had a chance to look at? You have a change to NR4R4. You have some minor non-substantive changes, which would just be corrections, which we will continue to do regardless. And then you have a series of public comments that we had received after the PNZ meeting. So that would be the biggest difference that you have. We've not made anything that's really any different than what we've proposed prior to that. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Mulser. You have a request to speak. No, that was covered in my seconding of the motion. We have a motion and a second to postpone until May the 7th. All right. Let's vote on the board please. So a vote of yes is to postpone, no is to continue on with this discussion. And a vote. Motion to postpone fails five to two. All right. So we'll now move on to the discussion. Council Member Hussbeth. Well, let me, can I kill two birds, one stone? Or? Sure. Yes. You can make two observations with one statement. Thank you. So first, I'll move approval, and then second, my comment kind of lies, I guess, a combination. So Scott and Mr. City Manager and Ron, if you can give a, I may need to borrow you as well. So Southeast Denton Neighborhood Association meeting last night, concerns about R4 and the townhome component, and I've been processing how to better manage that, understanding the changes today. I think I found some middle ground, understanding this takes place October 1st. My ask city managers that we can work towards an overlay that would be in place before October 2nd to kind of see, because here's my concern, in that neighborhood, if we're worried about gentrification, which I am, if you could quickly buy some property and then move some people out and get those in place, it's not per se a use that would normally be there, but for mortality, whatever, that kind of a family inherits that, and then it begins to change the entire dynamic of that area pretty succinctly, pretty quickly, and so I want to just have some protections in place that if a townhome, duplex, triplex, whatever, that it's purposeful, but that there's some protections against just opportunist, if you will, and so that's what I would, I'm trying to not make a ask that would affect an entire city, but just say this particular neighborhood association has a legitimate concern, and I see this as a way to at least address that before we're all rolled in. So that's my ask, and that's going to, so I just want to see staff's thoughts on that. Okay, so if I understand you correctly, is that you're looking for NR4 not necessarily to be removing the triplex and fourplex throughout the city, is that accurate? That is correct. I think it's by SUP. Correct. Yeah. Currently. That's the new update? No. Duplex. No. Let me go backwards. Yeah. So NR4 today allows for single-family duplex townhome. When we made the conversion, it ended up allowing also then the triplex and fourplex that didn't exist in our current code. So we offered a little more flexibility. However, after hearing some of the community, after visiting with staff, the consensus wasn't visiting with the chair of the DCRC, it was the conclusion that we would leave NR4 consistent with what, excuse me, R4 consistent with what NR4 is today. So it is staff's recommendation to do that citywide. Another piece to that is we may come back to talk about housing variety, housing diversity, and options in housing as a separate item later. Just right now, we want to make a straight conversion of NR3 and NR4 consistent with what we have today. And then we want to talk about what other housing options may be available. So I don't know if that answers that question. Let me make sure I'm tracking with you. So R4, the new terminology, R4 would be single-family. It would be duplex and townhomes. Correct. And triplex, quad, whatever that is, quadplex. Fourplex. There we go. By SUP or not at all? Not at all. Right. Okay. I'm tracking with you. And so help me envision how many, what's the visual? So one home or four dwelling units per acre, townhomes, that would be eight per acre. Is it a straight line conversion or is there some setback differences? No. There would be numbers that would correspond, so it's the size of the unit and the two wouldn't be comparable. Okay. Got it. Got it. So to answer your question, my ask would be Southeast Denton Neighborhood Association, we're talking about an overlay anyway. And my ask for that Southeast Denton neighborhood for concerns of gentrification would be to allow an overlay to be in place so that the neighborhood has an opportunity to weigh in on what goes in, what's allowed in that overlay area before we allow the townhome more over the duplex component. That's I think, Ron, is that what our, did I hear that right last night? Right. Well, they were really concerned about the triplex and fourplex multifamily. I didn't necessarily hear townhomes or duplexes. So it was the triplex and the fourplex that they were concerned with. Okay. Got it. So and I'll lean on that understanding. So I understand that can happen by right. I would just then ask, I'll modify my ask, that we have an overlay in place before, try to get the ball rolling. We've talked about that well before this process. So that started when we first started talking about the draft zoning map in 2017. So we absolutely can get going on that. This portion will be, I think achieved. We certainly can work on that. I don't know whether we can, you know, what that timeline will look like just depends on citizen participation. Happy to do that. Okay. And if I might add one more thing if we're completed with that, just if we're getting to a point of making a motion to approve that the ordinance that you have, I'd like to also add that the piece on the city attorney would then be making approved to form that final document that those substantive changes, he would indicate that that's a substantive change that needs to come before this body. So just to put that charging language in the ordinance, we can craft, the city attorney's office can craft that language, but just to make sure that he is charged and has the authority to approve to approve to form on that on those, you know, edits that we may make as far as just grammar, corrections, et cetera, no substantive changes. So you're saying you would like to, you're requesting that that be included in the motion correct to effectuate the process that you've described. Correct. Yes. Do I need to restate or just accept? I have some suggested language for you if you'd like to restate your motion to include the amendment and I'll read you the suggested language. And then do I just accept it or pair it after you? You can just accept it, I think. Perfect. Yeah. I'll take it. Okay. So I move approval pending the city attorney's clarification. Pending an amendment to the existing draft ordinance attached to your agenda backup that would create a new section that would allow as follows, the city attorney is authorized to make corrections and implement non-substantive changes to the newly revised Denton Development Code in support of the policy direction given. I do. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Is there, is council member Briggs? Yeah. I'm in favor of going ahead and passing this tonight with the changes to the R3 and R4 being more aligned to what they were. I'm going through all of these new comments and most of them are about protecting their residential neighborhoods and their established neighborhood and with the R4, to get a town home or they need an SUP for that anyway, even with the new code and so until that can be done, I feel like there's a layer of protection in there with the P and Z in the process on that for the neighborhood that you're talking about. Yeah. And so most of the comments that I'm reading have to do with zoning and I feel like that's something we can take up with the next item that we worked really hard on this code and I appreciate staff getting back, working really hard on this and with the residents answering all the questions. So sorry. Mayor Pro Tem. Did you want to go ahead and take the second before I spoke or do you want to? Council member Duff? I'll second. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Just one question for legal, do we need to have the motion include the zoning district transition chart as part of the- I think that's part of the ordinance, isn't it? No. I think that's included in the ordinance. Okay. It is included in the ordinance. Am I correct on that? All right. As Exhibit B. It is an appendix and that's part of the errata so if adopting the errata with this, we'll complete that. I apologize. I didn't catch that. I just want to make a few comments. I'm definitely in favor of this. A lot of us put a lot of long hours into this. I forget what we had, 37, 38 meetings on Fridays, at least two hours long. What we started looking at here recently was the future land use map is got a- when it comes to residential, you have a low density area which the 2030 plan described as four units or less per acre and then you have moderate density, it goes up from there. I believe that's from four to 12 and above that and that's where we- one of the reasons that we pulled the idea of having in an R3, a townhome, a duplex, or a triplex was because you're starting to increase that density above what our future land use map is. That future land use map is also a tool used by other departments within the city that do planning such as our mobility plan and so if you're planning for low density and you end up with high density, now your roads are under- are not built to the size that they need to be. So it's important that we utilize these planning tools across the board. It's not just our planning and development department that uses them. It's used by our water, wastewater, our streets department, and et cetera and as far as a concern about having townhomes go into an R4, we had a discussion- I had a discussion with a couple of staff members and with Clarion earlier today in that it's unlikely because it requires 7,000 square feet for a lot and you're not going to put a townhome on a 7,000 square foot lot. There is a trade-off that we're trying to figure out exactly how it goes that they could do it that set aside land but at least the density doesn't increase dramatically because of the fact that you're allowing these in that area but it's just economically unfeasible to do it unless you have land that is undevelopable to begin with that you're able to set aside as open space and tree reserves and that type of thing and we want to encourage those conservation areas as well so we don't want to completely eliminate that opportunity. When we talk about additional housing forms, something that our new code has in it that hasn't been in there in the past is accessory dwelling units which is basically a mother-in-law suite that can be built on a single family property. Those are some of the things. Putting the triplexes and fourplexes in place under our old code, those were always considered multi-family and there's a big difference between a triplex and a huge apartment complex and we wanted to make sure that we were looking at those differently as well and I invite anyone who has any questions on this code to give me a call anytime. I feel I'm fairly well versed. I chaired the committee on this. I made Scott upset all the time but the first book that we got, 500 pages, about every third page had a dog ear on it. By the time we got to the second one, it was about every seven pages. Now I've only got one or two dog ears left but with that I will definitely be in favor of this. All right, Council Member Meltzer. To the idea that this is rushed, I don't actually agree with that. It's been a very dense process, a very extensive review. As your Council Member, I've had an opportunity to look at every page of it and we took a couple of hundred pages at a time. It's really a very thorough process, lots of public input. I'll just touch on one other feature that hasn't been mentioned yet that I think is a kind of good innovation, which is the opportunity to cluster houses in new developments, to allow more open space, in other words, to have them as an alternative to having minimum lot sizes to be closer together and allow more area to remain natural. I will make one comment for the benefit of the City Council of the year 2029 that if you can hear me now, if there's a zone, they're not going to do anything to it but take a letter out of the name of it, I would just leave that letter in and not send a lot of notices about that, but that's not for today. Okay, all right. I do want to thank, and I was on the subcommittee that reviewed this over the 38 meetings and I certainly want to thank the public for their input. I want to thank staff for their just tireless effort to put this together. This is probably one of the biggest things that the City Council will tackle. There's obviously issues that have more passion surrounding them, but as far as how our city develops and how we try to find a way to have consistent but also efficient development, taking into consideration the input of the citizens and the preservation of neighborhoods and the preservation of what we know to be Denton. This is quite an undertaking and in fact the legal consultant that we use said that it's probably, and this is all she does, she's a municipal land lawyer and she helps cities write these type of codes and she said that this process for this city has probably been one of the most extensive processes that she's been involved in. I want to thank my committee members, Council Member Briggs, Mayor Pro Tem Ryan for their tireless work on this and Mayor Pro Tem is right. He would come in with many, many changes, but most of all I want to thank the public for being here. I watched the PNZ meeting for the first public hearing and there were a lot of people and staff worked with them even before the meeting, after meeting, they really answered a lot of questions. In fact, as I watched the meeting, those wanting to speak began to dwindle because their questions were being answered and so I really appreciate staff taking the time and effort to do that and it just shows your commitment to the community and to listening to the residents and implementing it to the best of your ability, those issues or those concerns and to find a way to resolve problems. So thank you all so much for doing that and there's a lot of people behind the scenes on that. So I appreciate that work and I appreciate everyone tonight and everyone up to this point who have sent us comments and who have also been a part of this process. Council Member Armitage. I just want to reiterate, thanks to most of all the public for all their input. Thank you to our committee who has worked so hard. Thank you to staff. There's so much about this code that I love and I just want to make it clear why I'm going to be voting no because I myself have not had the time to give these additional comments the same level of scrutiny that I've given the other comments. That's my own personal choice and that's why I'm voting no and why I moved to postpone. But I wanted to make it clear that there's a lot to love about the new code and then there's a lot that's just status quo in a neater, cleaner format. That's all. Council Member Briggs. That's a process question because I really want you to know that a lot of these changes were made because of the residents who came out and spoke and so we appreciate all the comments and feedback and I think you guys looked at it as much as we did almost. And so I appreciate that. My question is for staff on all of these comments because as I read through them and have looked at them in the past, they all have contact information and a lot of them are concerned with the R2, R3, R4 which when this passes will be taken care of. Their concerns will be no more. Will someone reach out to them to let them know or is that our jobs as council members? We certainly could. I mean, where we can identify those, we put it in an Excel spreadsheet so we can sort that data and we certainly can reach out and make contact to let them know that as a result of their feedback and other feedback that we've made those changes. I think that would be great so that they know that they were heard and it's really important. Thank you. Thank you. So Scott, before you leave, before we take the vote, I also want to just clarify that may help with the next agenda item that we're going to hear on the zoning map. That the transition table that is included as exhibit B which is a part of the code defines what your code, what your zoning was or is currently and then what it will be not rezoned to but reclassified as under the new code. That's why we tried to make them as straight across as possible. The zoning map, first of all, has no legal effect. It's simply a representation, pictorial representation of the DDC and that transition table originally and then with any subsequent zoning changes, whether it's city initiated or whether it's owner initiated, they come forth from that effective data. Is that correct? That is absolutely correct, Mayor. So I wanted to make sure that we're going to talk about the zoning map but what we have and what we're approving now is what's going to define the zoning classifications for the properties. Whether it shows up on the map or not, the map eventually will reflect, as you will explain when we get to this agenda item with the different maps, that representation of that initial kind of reclassification. So I wanted to make sure that that was clear as far as the purpose and the importance of the transition table in the ordinance as an exhibit to the DDC. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to agenda item as enunciated by the city attorney and accepted by the movement and the seconder. Let's vote on the board for agenda item. I believe it's 3C. Motion carries 6 to 1. We've been going for about an hour and a half. Let's take about a 5 or 10 minute break and we'll come back and consider agenda item 3D. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on April the 23rd, 2019. We are at 9 on 9 p.m. We are now moving to agenda item 3D, which is hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, approving a citywide rezoning to coincide with zoning regulations adopted under the newly revised Denton Development Code. I will now open the public hearing, so I won't forget to do that. Thank you. Mr. Ron. Thank you, Mayor. Members of council, members of staff, Ron Minguita, principal planner of development services. Excited to be here as well. This is obviously a long time coming. I'm going to be talking about the draft zoning map. So just so that we can lay the table so that people will understand, it's the plan that this is on for approval, but that's not going to necessarily be staff's recommendation. Correct. But, you know, the impact of what we just passed, I want to answer as many questions as we can in the presentation about what we're doing here tonight with the zoning map and what's already been done in the approval and then how we look at different modifications. So I'm sure that's in the presentation. Correct, yes. It will be towards the end of the presentation. Fantastic. Thank you. You've already seen this slide before. Just, again, reiterate that this whole effort is part of the implementation of the plan 2030 and really the vision of the community. I want to just highlight a little bit of the zoning district because we're talking about the zoning map, per se. We have a total of 14 zoning districts here, and they're broken by sets of zoning districts, residential, mixed-use, corridor, and other non-residential districts, and it also contains plan development districts, which is now part of the code. So here is the transitional chart. I think everyone has been referencing this in the previous item. This is how our existing zoning districts are going to be transitioned to, and as you can see on the chart, all the residential NR1 through NR6 are just transitioned to R1 through R6. We are also consolidating a number of zoning districts, and as you can see from the following zoning districts, they are transitioned from DR1 and NRME12, as well as MF1 to R7, and so on and so forth. I'm not going to read it for the record, but you can see it here on the screen, and this is how we are going, or how the council has considered the transition of the existing to the proposed districts. Again, I want to express that there were a lot of work that was done on the draft development code as well as the zoning map, 17 work sessions, 37, 38 DCRC meetings, 23 public meetings and over 14 stakeholder meetings that were held with neighborhood groups, development groups as well, and other stakeholders as well. We did send out notifications, over 26,817 letters were mailed out, 2,500 follow-up letters or clarification letters were also mailed out as part of our notification. Since we mailed those out, staff has received over 700 emails and calls and response forms as well. Our zoning map that's been published on the DENCODE2030.com has also seen several thousands of hits for the community to view the zoning map but also other materials, and that's a really good thing to have them participate. So here is the updated response forms, and I know that we delivered or we gave the council the response forms that weren't added as part of the backup to you this afternoon, and we apologize for that. That is something that we didn't mean to, but we did provide that for you this afternoon. As of noon today, we've received 294 response forms, 216 in opposition, 76 in favor, and two in neutral, and this is the breakdown of the response form in opposition. As you can see, the majority of the opposition response was no more multi-family, and again, that's generally their comment. Following that is they want a different zoning district than what is shown, or at least part of the notice that they received, that's at 37. Next one after that is 33, where they talked about no duplexes, townhomes, and triplexes, but I think a lot of that was addressed from what was considered earlier. And then the rest is just a number of other comments that they've noted in their response forms. With that, I'm going to ask Scott to come up and talk about the process, where we are, and where we're going to be going in the next couple months. Thank you, Mayor, Council, Scott MacDonald, Director of Development Services. So we've went to PNZ and Council, we're here today, we've adopted the code, and now we have the map. We recognize through the public hearings and the comments that we've received that we've got some corrections that we need to make. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to publish an updated map. We have not touched the map that's been published, and we have that map over here, which is the transition zoning map. So just we retitled it so it was clear that where we have the transition table, this is a more clear delineation of what action had occurred. So absolutely. So that's the map there. Is that the transition map? That is the new draft zoning map, yes. So what that is is simply the old zoning map we had before the item we just passed had all these different zoning classifications. You took the transition table, you said this is what this zoning is now, with the passing of the code, this is what it's going to, and that map reflects that kind of one-to-one change based upon the transition table. Absolutely does. That's our current zoning map, and this map should be relatively close. So that's the map that's going to be the basis for our next steps. So from that, we've had a number of properties that we've identified that we wish to do something different with. We recognize that we have some changes that we need to make. We're going to hear some more public feedback this evening, and we're going to work over the course of the next 45 to 60 days to try to distill all of those comments and bring those forward to council as city-initiated rezonings. So because we have zoning in place, we're going to bring those, rather than the property owners having to do that, where it is that it meets the future land use map, the environment which is on the ground, and what makes the best sense for the city of Denton. So as we do that, we're going to attempt to try to keep a running record of that, and we have a question. I'm sorry? Well, there's a couple of people wishing to speak. Council Member Armitage. Sorry. This is for a previous slide, maybe the slide before that. I think there was just one before that, just about those comments. Yeah. The 17 comments about, the concerns about will cause non-conforming use, am I correct in understanding that there will be no non-conforming uses now under the new? No, that's not completely accurate. Okay. So if there's non-conforming, they may still be non-conforming where they're illegal. We're not going to create non-conforming. So that's really kind of the biggest piece. And some of this was some of the changes that we made with the transition table or updated the transition table and some of the next steps that we're going to take that I think will help to offset some of that. So keep in mind that we've received these responses over the period of public hearings, comments, et cetera. I don't know that all of these comments are valid today, no different than we had probably close to 300 individuals come to P&Z. I think we had two speak on the development code and roughly 20 that spoke regarding the zoning map. It really is getting more of the word out there and understanding and trying to be a little more clear. So going to the 17, I don't know what those 17 specifically are. Okay. And can you clarify, and if I don't get your answer this time, we can talk about it later in private, but I'm guessing as a teacher, I know if there's one person in the room who doesn't understand something, it usually means there's more. Can you clarify again for me that distinction between there being no nonconforming uses versus what you proceeded to explain about if something is currently nonconforming? And then I kind of lost you for a moment. My bad. So if you could just reiterate that again, exactly how there are no -- sorry. I think I can. So if there is a nonconforming use today, this code isn't necessarily going to make it a conforming use. Got it. Okay. Yes. Got it. So no new nonconforming uses would -- No, we shouldn't be creating no new -- No. Yes. Correct. Thank you. Okay. Yes. So that was my interpretation. Thank you. Oh, Council Member Briggs. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. It's me. So you were talking about the process and the city-initiated zonings. My question, will the property owners be aware that their property is in that list of city-initiated zonings and, like, at what point -- if not, at what point will they find out? Or individuals out here who want the rezoning, if it's not in the city-initiated zoning process or zoning change, then they would need to initiate that on their own through the regular process? Correct. Okay. So I know that we spoke to some individuals that wish to have their property rezoned. That is not something that staff would support. And they ultimately have the process available to them today to go through a rezoning. What we're looking to do is try to group, bunch, or look at geographical areas and say, okay, this is what makes sense, especially with the feedback that we may receive. So we have another map that we have displayed here that has what we believe to be some of the initial city-initiated rezonings. We also, through the development review committee, we're tasked with looking at split zonings and trying to correct those split zonings. So we're going to try to prioritize. We'll be coming to council in some work sessions to talk about the process of where we're going. This is an immediate step that we've already begun working on. It was ultimately we needed to have the code cemented in place so that we could say, okay, here's the zoning. This is what we're looking at doing. So when we bring this item back to council in roughly 45 to 60 days, whatever the period of time is that's necessary for us to work through this, we'll be making each of those city-initiated rezonings individually to each parcel by separate ordinance. We may bring them collectively in a group if we had an area that we say what's indicated on the map in red is highway corridor. So a lot of that makes sense to be highway corridor. We're going to knock on doors. We're going to talk to those property owners first. We're going to provide them notice that we're looking at proposing a rezoning of their property. We're going to provide notice to property owners within 200 feet of each property that's proposed to be rezoned prior to bringing it to PNZ and council as what we would do with a normal process today. And so that would be heard as a separate ordinance. Each of those ordinances would get voted on either yay or nay, and then the transition map or what we have today as that draft zoning map would then be adopted as amended from any action that occurs from this point forward to either our current zoning map or future zoning map, if that makes sense. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor. Just for clarity on the not creating any new nonconforming that is only when it comes to residential is the way the code that we just adopted is written, correct? Correct. So any type of commercial or industrial use could potentially be that. And that's part of what we're doing with this with the city initiated rezoning is the we didn't have the highway corridor before zoning and that's where the car dealerships need to be, but what they were in when you do the straight across, now they're not now they become nonconforming until we change them back to highway. And some of them even being nonconforming today. So however we got to that point, we want to correct that. So we feel that's best for the city to initiate that rezoning. And again, we bear the burden of doing it and think we can be effective in doing that. So ultimately, prior to doing that, those steps will take place. We think that we can, again, garner more feedback from the public and from the community as a whole and bring a better product forward before your consideration. That's it. Okay. All right. Okay, so I've already opened the public hearing. So we will start going through the cards. And I'll do it in the same fashion, we'll call the first speaker and then I'll announce who will be next. The first speaker is John, is it Shiber? And after Mr. Shiber be Robert Stock. Thank you, Mayor and Council for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I appreciate the effort that has gone into the work to bring the development code today, which I do support. I also want to thank Scott, McDonald and Ron personally, they've been available and proactive in communication regarding my concerns with my property. I live at 520 North Austin Street. That's about 100 yards behind where you sit right now. That little unicorn of a property, if you were looking at it, would have an arts and crafts style house that was built in 1921 and a duplex sitting in the backyard. I purchased the property in October of 2005 to relocate my architectural practice from downtown Dallas to Denton because I saw the opportunity of growth here and at the time I lived in Flower Mound. I purchased this property after discussions with the development services based on a map that I had in 2005. And that map shows an area in red, which shows the central business district. I printed this off today and nothing's changed. That particular property is right here located in the central business district on this map that's on your webpage. That was one of the reasons I purchased this property. One of the other reasons I purchased it because it was on the last street of the central business district, which was zoned DCG at the time and allowed for any legal use of the property. One of the other aspects about it, because it's a historical structure and I can't do anything to the exterior, is this particular property since it's in the central business district didn't have a requirement for the one-site storage of vehicles in a parking lot on-site. Hence, my employees could park on the street. I certainly liked the fact that it was a historic property. That added value to it and was really important to me and one of the main reasons that I did buy the property. After I purchased the property that October, I came to the city and applied for a certificate of occupancy, which I still hold to date for commercial use. Professionally, I'm an architect and planner. I've worked with municipal, county, state, political subdivisions, and government agencies across the state of the Texas for almost all of my 26 years as a licensed architect. I understand that we were going through rezoning within the city of Denton and I received a letter the week of April 5th that said that my property was being rezoned as notification in this process. Imagine my surprise when I received a letter of notification that my property was being rezoned from downtown urban or downtown central business district and university core to residential use R7. Obviously, that had certain parameters for one-site storage of vehicles that I couldn't be in compliance with under the new development code. The proposed zoning, as it sits now, is inconsistent with the commercial certificate of occupancy that I hold, also is inconsistent with the prior zoning map that was published and printed as recently as today, which puts me in a position of having a legal use but non-conforming because I can't store vehicles on-site. I don't know what I'm doing to the screen here. Is that somebody else? I gotcha, I kept looking at this mouse thinking I'm not moving it, I'm not moving it. It's telepathic. So, there's an inconsistent transition between what my property was and what it's being proposed. In talking to Scott, staff has recommended that it be moved to an MN, but obviously it still creates a non-conforming use of having the inability to store vehicles internally to the site because I can't put a parking lot on the interior of the lot, which you've designated as a historical site, in essence. Also, I purchased the property as an investment. I saw the potential for Denton and have enjoyed the success of what we've all have seen happen, especially over recent years. Obviously, the changing of my property from commercial use in downtown Central Business District to residential use affects my property value and gets in my pocketbook, so that's a concern. That was the bell, so if you could just wrap up your comments and go ahead, I'm sorry. What I would request is that my property and the seven other properties on these two block areas that were originally part of the Central Business District remain and that they be designated as MD. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And if there's a way, because I know as far as showing the speakers how much time they have left because we're pulling up all the zoning things, if there's a way we could, I think we're going to have to have the map up or the time. So if there's a way to kind of give, I just don't want people to not know how much time they have left. A 30-second warning, maybe? Yeah. Or if you'd rather have the timer, and I was just going to ask, Mr. Mayor, if you have a preference, Cody Yates has done a fantastic job. He's a wizard. Yeah. He's a wizard at this. Mr. Mayor, if council chooses. Yes. That would be my preference is if the speaker would like for us to pull this up, that we could do that. And then at some point, if we could give, and if it stays up, that we give some kind of indication of a minute left or something just so people aren't surprised because they would gauge their comments based upon how much time they have left. So we'll figure it out as we go, but let's try to sort of work within those parameters if that's possible. Absolutely. Okay. Fantastic. So, Mr. Shiver, thank you so much for your comments. Where'd you go? Oh, thank you so much for your comments. Sorry about that interruption. The next speaker will be Mr. Stock, and then the speaker after that will be JB, is it? Hasler? Hasler and McCutchen? Okay. All right. Thank you. My name is Robert Stock. Yes. Go ahead. I'll wait. Oh, okay, because I've got to, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I got the map up, and so I didn't see the request to speak. I apologize. Council Member Husspeth, is this for the last speaker? Yes, sir. No question. I just wanted to, if staff at the end of the public comment can come back and give us their suggestion to mitigate that or what zoning matches what's currently on the ground in use, I just want to make a note of that. So obviously, I think you propose MN, but then there's the parking issue. So I want to try to understand if there's something that matches what's currently been done there that doesn't require SUP or special circumstances, I'd rather have a zoning that kind of just fits those uses, that parking requirement, et cetera, if that is out there in the universe. And I think if it's fair to say that we've attempted to work through most all of these, this is going to be, I think what you see here today is those that we haven't been able to work through. So that's why it is that we're proposing city-initiated rezonings. So it's not as if we can go in and change the last speaker's property and say that we're going to make it X, whatever that might be, without providing notice to the neighbors surrounding that. So we want to go through a formal process. We may agree or disagree with what it is that the applicant's proposing, or we may have a recommendation for something different. I don't know that we're going to be able to answer all of these on the fly this evening. Certainly can try to. We're supportive of looking at every one of these cases, and some of those that we've already determined, we have plotted on a map as to saying what we think should happen, if that helps. It does. But I think not seeking a resolution this evening, just giving heads up that the resolution that I could get behind won't require special consideration in addendum two. So for example, if you say, hey, we're going to put you in this zoning and add this extra layer of whatever to make it look like what it is currently, when you bring those back, just giving you heads up, that's a little problematic for me. I think we need to source something that is -- because if they don't have an SUP today, I don't know that we need to give them an SUP. Correct. For example, so that's why we have Mr. Yates here. And so Mr. Yates can then clearly show what it is that we have through the transition table to what is currently zoned. So it is currently zoned today, and it reflects that very closely. I think that the comments were is that somewhere between -- when he purchased the property, it was zoned differently. And somewhere in this there's been a change that has occurred. Not from the current zoning that we have today. So that one's a little more of an anomaly for some reason, and that's why it's reflective of the zoning around it. And I hope I'm answering that. Yes, sir. Yeah, what I don't think we're going to be able to do today is when we get specific -- like the last speaker, specific concerns, we're not going to be able to resolve those today. That's why I think they're saying we're going to have time to go back and look at that. And as they come forward to us, if you've got a concern with what they've recommended, we'll process it at that point. Because right now -- because this public hearing is going to be continued because we can't do those changes now. It's going to give us time to make those changes so that when the zoning map is finally adopted, at least officially for the first time, it's going to be with amendments that staff has come back with city-initiated zonings and the like. So yes. Yeah, no, and to that point, I think -- I hope afterwards, our discussion on council can be one that we don't have that extra layer -- find a way that we don't have to have extra -- kind of universally across everybody's concerned. That's my hope. But we'll get there. Yeah, we'll get there. I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure legally that our legal consultant -- but we'll get there. We'll have that discussion. We have every intention of trying to do the very same thing, so that's what we're looking to do. And I'm happy to offer, Mr. Mayor, that we can provide a report after this. We'll capture all of these notes and we can provide a report back to council, probably not this week but by next Friday, kind of outlining what we heard and kind of what those remedies might look like. Great. You bet. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I think that hits it. I wanted to -- realizing that we're not going to adjudicate every case on the fly here, I just wanted those who come forward to speak to know there is some process. It is captured. We'll take it to the next step. Yeah. Councilmember Armitage? Thank you. And I just wanted to throw in my two cents, not for the result of that process, but just to recommend to staff that when considering requests like that, that if it's a zoning change request that affects neighboring properties, not just a single property, neighboring properties, let those neighboring property owners be consulted in however the way you do. You're smiling. I can tell you already have this in mind, but just to say also for the public to understand that this is -- it is a priority of staff, that staff realizes that it's -- that there are other properties affected. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, Mr. Stack? Yes. And if we could go ahead and take the map off and we'll get the time up. And then if they want the map -- there we go. Okay. Fantastic. In case you think I'm going to talk too long, huh? No. No. Okay. Go ahead. Your name and address, your time will begin. My name is Robert Stock. It's 5101 East University Drive, Greenbelt Business Park. My property's out on 380 east of the Copper Plant, out to the swamp, the bridge, whatever you want to call that part of the town. Anyway, you have us all zoned out there as residential. I have 30,000 square feet of buildings with 16 tenants, and you guys gave me a permit to put a big sign up one time, so that would have been interesting in a residential area. And I think it should be really zoned SC, which is suburban corridor, which I think is really a great thing. Happy that Ron and Scott had brought that to my attention, and they've been a blast to work with, too. Really, really helpful. But right now, my property is set to be rezoned just residential, too -- R2, which is, like I said, crazy, considering that what we have there -- I mean, we have a television studio, a production company, a doggy daycare, hair people, I mean, numerous. We got 16 tenants altogether, and only one of them came from Denton, and actually they're leaving us at the end of the month. We're getting someone from Lewisville. So every tenant I have there comes from a different part of the state, and one even out of state. And I think that whole corridor along there would need to be rezoned, really, SC. I think that's the best thing, because we sort of feel -- the business owners out at that end -- we sort of feel like an ugly stepchild from the city, not being treated too well. It's like you guys forgot about us or something, but we're still there. We haven't been flooded. So my thing is recommending doing the whole corridor as SC, and I think it'll be a benefit even to the city, because it may even start to develop better than that, and that's all I have. >> Okay. Councilmember Briggs? >> I was going to ask if Cody could do the city-initiated rezoning. Do you have that on that map to see? No? Okay. Because I'm looking, and I feel like that's already on one of the city-initiated zonings. So thank you for coming to speak and bringing that to our attention. >> And by the way, if you want to take care of the housing, the lady that was here, one thing -- I've been a builder for 30 years, and our whole complex is a green, energy-efficient complex, and cluster housing could be a really unique thing. I've never been able to get it through any city because they didn't like it, and most banks don't like it because they want you to have a two-car garage and a fireplace in order to put a loan on something. But cluster housing with ICF and geothermal could work very well and be very low-maintenance and low-energy-efficient, too, because a 700-square-foot home would probably cost you about $25 a month to operate. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So I'm going to call on JB Hasler and Mary McCutcheon, and after JB, it'll be Boyd Taylor. >> Yes. My name is JB Hasler, and I'm here on behalf of myself, my brother, Melvin Hasler, and my sister, Mary Ann McCutcheon. As a family, we own raw, undeveloped land currently being farmed. It is located at the southeast corner of Loop 288 and North Locust FM 2164, track number 313-900. I think you can see it off of this map here, it shows what I really wanted to show, okay? We were very satisfied with the previous zoning made in 2018 of suburban corridor for the entire 53 acres of this property. The presently proposed residential zoning is undesirable to us because of the following, and I'd like to show again what the following is here on this map. There are undesirable features on all four directions surrounding this property that would deter potential residential development. On the east, 138,000 high voltage electric power line is with 105 foot easement. On the west, FM 2164 and a city power distribution network. On the south, 138,000 volt electric power line with 105 foot easement, a drainage ditch and a proposed water retention pond. And on the north, Loop 288 is undesirable for residential development because of noise traffic and poor eye appeal. Presently, there are exits off Loop 288 to shopping centers on the west, east and south sides of town. This would give much needed access to shops on the north side of Denton for development that proceeds on the north side. In conclusion, this land is not well suited for residential development, but is ideally situated for commercial development. We would appreciate your consideration making all of these properties on suburban corridor. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Thank you. Oh yeah, if you'll just hand them to the city secretary, she'll pass them out. Thank you very much. Thank you. Boyd Taylor and then James Fee. Is Mr. Taylor here? Mr. Boyd Taylor? Okay. Interesting to speak in opposition at 631 South Mayhill Road. No comments. So James Fee, James Fee, I oppose to my property being rezoned R4, it is currently DCG. I plan to use this property as a commercial office. Zone MD would go out my intended use. James Fee at 223 Sycamore. Brian Haas. Is Brian here? Brian is in support if HC. Sounds like we're getting a little storm out there. Dan Hampton. Yes. Dan Hampton. Yes. And then I'll read your friend's card into the record. Yes. Thank you, sir. I'll give you the name and address and your time will begin. And we'll need the overhead for this as well. Yes. Good evening. My name is Dan Hampton. My residence is 2798 Robinson Road. That is at the corner lot on Robinson Road and FM 2499, AKA Barrel Strap Road. I fill out a card opposing or disagreeing, that may be a little bit strong, provides you an alternative zoning request from, we're currently RD5X, the proposed is RR. We are requesting for SC, Suburban Corridor. Part of that requirement is Suburban Corridor be attached to an arterial road. FM 2499 is an arterial road. My property is on the corner, southeast corner of that intersection. I have frontage on Robinson Road as well as frontage on 2499. I'm speaking for myself, but if there's no opposition or no objection, I would like to reference a couple of other properties near me and adjacent to me who are on record of also requesting SC. This should help provide clarity of this is not a standalone request, there is a group of people looking at the same thing. This is 2499. This is 2499. This is my property, my neighbors across 2499 and my neighbor directly to the south of me, all requesting SC, all along 2499. As mentioned earlier, Speaker, to the south of this, there are already three properties zoned commercial. That's the car wash, the storage facility, and the one on this side has yet to be determined what's going there, but it is currently zoned commercial. We are looking to be adjacent to these with zoning in these three areas, all SC. I know that there are some hurdles that are in front of us in doing this, but I want to present this to you as a request. I feel like that this is the highest and best use of these properties, and they should fit in with the R2 SC requirement. That's it as a summary. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. And then you had, let's see, Michael Lawrence filled out a card, highest and best use of the property is commercial. I think this is in the same vicinity, approximately 700 feet of 2499, so it says also I'll be out of the country and we'll be having Dan Hampton speak on my behalf, so I think you've covered sort of his concerns. Yes. He's the property directly to the south of me. He has roughly a thousand feet of furniture, curb cut, and a dedicated left turn into that property. Okay. Thank you very much. You bet. Next speaker will be Mr. Steve Stone, and then on deck will be Cynthia Lichman. Whoever wants to go first. Okay. We don't know if it's Halen outside, do we? Anybody know if it's Halen? I think the worst looked like it was going south of us. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. Okay. Thank you for hearing what we propose here. Oh, and your name and address. My name is Cynthia Lichman, and I'm representing my mother, Oreena Herod, and the addresses involved would be some of her property at 1501 McCormack and 1515 McCormack in Denton, which is right near I-35. I don't know if you can show this, but I represent my mother. She's 91 now, almost 92, and she's got these rental properties here on McCormack Street and had owned them for over 30 years. We have always thought that in the future we would maybe look at doing something with them. This is 1501, and this is 1515, and you can see 35s here. There used to be a gas station here, but that got taken during the Textile expansion, and in fact they will be taking the north duplex for the frontage road access on that first property at 1501. This has changed just recently back to MN, which is a mixed-use neighborhood, and I'm proposing that these properties should also be mixed-use neighborhood, because for one thing they'd be sandwiched in between, and it just makes sense. We've spoken to the staff who have been very helpful, and it just makes sense being close to the highway with the expansion going on that future use be available to make something that would be beneficial to the neighborhood and also buffer them from I-35, and we're not ready yet, but I just think it should be zoned MN to be able to do that in the future, to do some kind of shops or restaurants or something like that along the highway corridor there, and like I said, that would help buffer the neighborhood from 35 and give them some nice areas to go to. I guess that pretty much sums up what I had to say about it, if Steve wants to add anything, but this is what we would propose for that area. Any questions? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Council Member Briggs, I believe, had a question. Well, yeah. I just wanted to say, I believe, did we receive a packet from you guys up here? That's right. Yeah. This is your property? That's kind of got all my information in it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. In case you needed it to look at later. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Council Member Briggs, was that your comment and question? All right. Thank you. Mr. Stone, and then up will be Gary Chang, state your name and address and your time will begin. You don't pull that intersection up. You don't pull that intersection up McCormick I-35. Essentially, I'm Steve Stone. I have commercial land services, I'm a real estate broker, I primarily do pre-development work. Address? 6827 Freeman Road in Crum, Texas. I had to depart Denton about 30 years ago. But hometown guy married a hometown girl, so Denton is still home to us. I grew up in this neighborhood. This is my favorite neighborhood in town because I grew up there and I moved there in 1948. Anybody else move in Denton before 1948? So I guess I've got it right now. The point I'm being is that it is my very favorite neighborhood because I love having grown up in the actual, in the CAD ID 115 right below there. So essentially this holds my heart because I've met Rena, I sold them the property of 114, I believe it is, many years ago. Essentially, I'm representing both Cynthia and her mother, Mrs. Herod tonight, as well as Mr. Hagigai, who has import autos on Ford Drive. He also owns the back portion of that. The blue line that is running parallel to I-35 is hugely important. That's how far the right-of-way will be coming over to the neighborhood that already is pre-existing there. So for the reason that Cynthia has so stated, Mr. Hagigai does too, NR4 is just inappropriate for use along the frontage of the freeway. And then the recommendation that you have in the initial rezoning is that it go to NM, and we're an advocate of that, but Mrs. Herod and Cynthia's property does not. So you isolate, the west side is already NM by recommendation. The back side is NM by recommendation. And so it would isolate three properties that would be residential sandwiched between them. So for all those reasons and purposes, if you'd like to pull that up, do you? Okay, I see. I was thinking that, yeah, there you go. You can pull in a little closer if you like, that's fine. Again, you can see where the property, not the one on the corner, but the next one has a curvilinear design, TexDOT has already taken that right-of-way on McCormick Street. What's happening is with her property on the corner, it's going to be okay. No rezoning for you. I'm being blessed already. The point about the curvilinear line is that there's a corner clip that is going to take place on the Herod property on the corner, and it is going to cut it off. The two buildings outside the green do not any longer exist and are already TexDOT property. So because of the corner clip, this entire section is going to regenerate into new something. So for that reason, NM is preferred. Okay. All right. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. See no questions. Thank you. Thank you, Manager, just in case if somehow the electricity goes out or something, what is the action plan? Would it be to, I think we probably have generator lights that should come on, but move downstairs? What's really the plan if something like that happens, I guess, is what I'd like to try to get squared away before, if that happens. I will get you an answer shortly. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's go to the next question, and then after that will be Eric Janssen. Hi. Gary Chang, 1600 West Hickory. I am opposed to the proposed zoning map. On the City of Denton's frequently asked question page, it states, "With respect to the proposed zoning, the city is matching the existing zoning of properties as closely as possible. Many properties that I represent in Denton zone downtown commercial general have been down zoned to MN. If I'm not mistaken, only the downtown area retains their commercial zoning equivalency. Does the city have a preference for the downtown area? Why is the downtown being pushed promoted so hard? They already receive generous subsidies through the downtown implementation plan. With this proposed rezoning, not only are they the only area to retain equivalent DCG building rights and regulations, they also get additional rights all while the rest of Denton gets down zoned. Downtown Denton is not the only vital part of Denton. The city should not be down zoning DCG areas not found in downtown to MN, which would be equivalent to down zoning DCG to NRMU 12 NRMU. Remember, DCG is within the category called Downtown University Core. The conversion table clearly states DCG would be equivalent to MN. So are there special interests behind the rezoning? I haven't gotten a clear answer as to why only a small part of town gets to keep an equivalent zoning. I guess because somebody important said the downtown area deserves it. So in conclusion, the Planning Department, the Denton Code Review Committee and the City Council should give all property owners due process. At present, I am opposed to the proposed zoning map. However, if DCG zone properties outside of downtown could be changed to MR zoning, I would be more agreeable. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Eric Jensen and then Ronald Further is up next. Good evening, my name is Eric Jensen. I reside at 3617 Falcon Court, 30 years' worth. I live in Councilmember Ryan's district. The property I want to speak to you about is in Councilwoman Briggs's district. If I could ask the draft zoning map be put up on the screen, I'd appreciate it. We're on the east side of town along 380, close to Lakeview Boulevard and Geesling Road. And I come to say thank you to Mr. McDonald as well as Ron McGeeta and others that I had some opportunity to speak with before tonight and also to the two Councilmembers that I got to speak to once. I've been traveling. I traveled 30 hours straight from Singapore to be here tonight. So I'm glad to be here. Please forgive me for not reading. I'm speaking and I should be reading. That's what I need to be doing tonight. But if I could bring your -- oh, farther east, almost to the lake. Almost to the lake. Lakeview Boulevard, right there, right there, a little more east. I have one parcel, 46 acres, it's zoned agricultural. It was excluded from the 2002 development code because of lack of proper notification from the previous owner. I bought it right at that time. The property is adjacent mine. Mine is the green square with a couple little indent bites out of the -- in the middle of the screen, right there. To the east of my property when I purchased it was NR6. To the north of my property was NRMU12. You also see more NR6 to the north, which is now in the final platting or developing phase. The owners have been in contact with me for a year trying to get sewer easement rights across my property. Also you see to the east of Lakeview Ranch you see a lot of NR4 properties. And if you continue farther south on Lakeview and Trinity, you will see more properties that are all zoned NR4. All of that constitutes probably 400 plus acres that's currently zoned NR4. And so I was here tonight to encourage the council to support Mr. MacDonald in the city initiated rezoning. So I was here to encourage you to do that. And I look forward to that opportunity. Lo and behold, I was surprised tonight to see the screen over here on the right. And every one of those that's NR6 or NR4 are being down zoned or at least currently supposed to be down zoned to NR2. So I think you're going to see a lot of opposition to that. Mine was zoned agricultural. And I was at this podium 17 years ago and there was a debate about whether it should be NR3 or NR4. And I went back and forth, back and forth, finally the mayor banged the gavel and said, okay, that will dispense with that issue. We won't change the zoning at all. We'll just leave it agricultural. And so mine stayed agricultural. And then given the guidance that the development staff received, they were supposed to either match what was on the ground or match the current zoning. And so mine was listed as rural residential. It's fine. In the city you initiated rezoning, I expected it to probably go NR4. And I had some staff members say, well, that makes sense because beside you is NR6, to the north of you is NR6, there's a lot of NR4. It's going to be a neighborhood. Tonight I see it shows R2 over here. So I will be opposed to R2. But I would ask the council members to maybe discuss with the staff, with the development staff to maybe look at whether or not all of that yellow on the east side of town really is appropriate. Because there's water service, there's sewer service, there's sewer lift stations, there's all the infrastructure to support higher density than NR2. And yet everything on that map on the east side of town is all yellow. So now if you ask enough questions, we can stay here until it stops raining. Let it not be said that I talked until it started raining. So anyway. But that's all I have to say. I know I'll visit with you all again at a future date. But I would like you to encourage the staff to consider whether or not that should all be yellow. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Ronald, further? And then next up will be Michelle Berry. John Furtick, 1500 Turbeyville. I represent Ecclesiastical Equity, who is forming a new nonprofit currently titled Manna for the World. We're attempting to do rescue food and create networks for feeding primarily refugees, children and other people who need food. The location for my, could you bring up the camera? Northeast corner. My property, which we've owned for quite a while, has been somewhat poorly treated, I believe. We used to have a connection across from the airport to the university. There was an unfortunate incident where somebody drove through a low water crossing and was killed. So they shut down Corbin Road, isolating me and more or less damaging the value of my property. I would suggest in this location, I would like the world headquarters of this nonprofit to be in that southwest corner of my property up against the freeway, freeway in Corbin Road, basically. If you notice, across the freeway is currently all industrial, and it's proposed, I noticed, for rezoning to a commercial corridor, but we have the freeway. We have all the industrial to the west, and because of that, I think commercial zoning for the western edge of my property is appropriate. What I would suggest would be to essentially cut my property in half, use the western edge as a buffer for the freeway to the residential, to the east. I would support half of my property being R2, even though I think it should be a little higher, I'll take R2, and the west side of the property acting as a buffer against the freeway and the commercial industrial to the west side. Any questions for the speaker? All right. And staff has taken those appropriate notes. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. It's my understanding, so correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. City Manager, that if the lights go out, the generator, we don't have necessarily backup lights in here. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So the only thing I would say is, as far as just to be innovative, those that have cell phones, they put out a pretty big flashlight, so I would just simply say we can either shelter in place, or if it's too bad, we can go downstairs, but we'll certainly take a break, and I would just say if that happens, just be very careful, probably just best to stay in here and just sort of not move around so much, so anyway, wanted to sort of give you an update on that. All right. Michelle, if you'll state your name and address again. Yes, Michelle Berry, 1730 Stonegate Drive. So I wanted to talk not about a specific property, but about the rezoning more generally. So I think the rezoning is where this project kind of fell off the rails just a little bit. If you're going to be rezoning the entire city, it really ought to be in compliance with the comp plan. I understand the desire to do like-for-like, it ruffles a few less feathers, but you're still doing that anyway. So I really wish that this had gone farther to support the comprehensive plan. I understand there's a lot of people speaking in opposition about this property and the other. I don't know the specifics of their properties and if what's proposed meets the comp plan or not, but people are going to be unhappy. They just are. Some people are going to get up-zoned to meet the comp plan. Some people are going to get down-zoned to meet the comp plan. But that was the overall community's vision for the city, and I think that that's your job to support. And I think that if you don't have the political will to support that, it would have been better to tell the city management and staff at the beginning of the process so as not to waste so much time and consultant dollars on the process that we did go down. And so I think that that was a mistake that's really on city management and on the council that could have been handled at the beginning of the process. And I know we're at where we're at now, but I encourage you, with the city-initiated rezoning, to stick to the comp plan, and I encourage you as individual council members to uphold the community's vision, which is for the 2030 plan. Thank you. So I want to make a comment to that. I appreciate that. Councilmember Meltzer and Councilmember Briggs, I understand what you're saying, and we received extensive legal advice to not do that, that it needed to reflect what the current zoning was to do a reclassification, so I appreciate that. And that was a question we all had, and I'm not saying it was legal advice from city attorney. We hired our own land consultant attorney to do that. So that's what we're doing with the city-initiated rezoning, is to do exactly what you just said. So there's going to be a time, no matter which way we go, people are going to be unhappy, well, I sat through 38 meetings, or almost 38, almost all of them, and that was the message we constantly heard, because we started off on that track that you just described, but we're told from people who are a lot smarter than I in the legal profession of this industry in land planning that this was the approach we needed to take. So I just wanted to let you know that this wasn't something that we entered into haphazardly, but that we had a tremendous amount of legal input on that particular issue. It's a policy decision at the end of the day that falls on the council. Well, I appreciate your input, I respectfully disagree with that, but that's certainly something that we can do differently if we so choose, but based upon the legal advice, I'm not willing to take that chance. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I guess I want to sort of amplify, maybe even hopefully clarify. I think we're on exactly the same page, policy-wise. The purpose of this exercise is just to clean up the code exercise. This isn't the planning part, and the explicit communication that I've received is the next thing is now figure out how to make the zoning conform to the comprehensive plan. So I actually think we're on the same page. I get that tactically you would have sort of suggested doing it differently, but I would just reassure you that the policy goal is the same. Councilmember Briggs? So I chimed in too because I was also on the committee and I wanted to echo what the mayor just said as far as what we were told and the route that we were headed on and that we are taking now. It started out to look like the comp plan, and then we switched back to match it as close as possible so that there wouldn't be any issues legally, and then we would have a separate discussion on the future land use map, which is a council policy discussion that you're talking about, which would mirror our comp plan. So the future land use map is the discussion that we all need to have as a council, and that would be closely mirror, and then we would line those up. So that was the process, and that's what we were following. I wasn't in all of your meetings. I also kind of disagree with the process that has a code review committee that's just council and P&Z and not experts in the field. I think you all should be giving policy direction, but not necessarily going to that level of detail. And I don't think that we're on the same page. So. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Those are all the cards that we have? Oh. Oh, okay. Come on down. It's public hearing anyway. Come down. State your name and address, and your time will begin. Kind of the Oak Fry Street area before I do all of that, and then I'll even start my own timer that way, I think. Maybe if I haven't lost it. Mary Anderson on West Oak, 924. And I'm a little confused because I've seen so many different zoning maps. I asked this to be put up so I could actually see what zoning is going to go in what used to be the bookstore and what is now kind of a desert of almost empty apartments. So it's somewhat bounded by kind of Fry Street in the, in the whatever houses you want to call there. I don't know if it's normal or around that normal. What zoning did we, did you guys just approve or what, what code area did that like go to? So MN. Yeah. I have a real problem with that. This is in the historic area, and that really dramatically increases the density. I mean, I just looked through what was in here, which was allowed under MN or even R7, everything from multifamily dwelling, which can be SROs as far as I've seen from living here, community homes with an SUP, which is pretty easy to get with $1,500, a dormitory. It can be a club, a lounge, a daycare, a homeless shelter, a school, a medical office, all kinds of good things from amenity center, which I'm not sure what amenities we're talking about here, and a bar, a tavern, all kinds of good things can go there. And I'm very concerned that you have up zoned this into something even more than was there. We already have traffic problems and I've been out here long enough to see people for many years. This is a real concern that that area has now just sitting there vacant. So when this, I would like, you know, the staff to look at what they've actually chosen here and remember the historic character of Denton and hopefully not allow more of the homes like we've lost by TWU that have gone from cute little bungalows to ugly overpriced apartments to occur again in this area because SUPs are cheap and easy to get for developers, not so much for the little folks. And Denton, downtown Denton, yes, you want to have some infill, but too much infill is not a good thing. Somebody said we had an oversupply of services in downtown Denton. No, really, we don't. There's not an excess of service, which is what somebody said. We just get by, but we don't have an excess of wide streets. We don't have, we have no parking. Yes, I'll be going to that meeting for those of you that attend. There's just not enough there. And I really don't like the look of what this is zoned. MNN is really upscaling this to just about anything you want. So thank you, but you're going to have a can of worms that I've opened up with this little, all these overlays that I've seen, and it won't be fun. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak? You don't have to have filled out a card. You can come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. One more small, tiny thing. Jennifer Lane, 1526 Willowwood. There's a very beautiful area across and slightly south of the Roselon Cemetery that's just wild, open, green, and as the city is looking at parks and so on and so forth, I think that is going to be brought forward as a suggestion. So while you're just here, I thought I would throw that out there so you might just keep that in mind. Remember that that's what's being discussed. It's already, they are already green, beautiful, older trees, sunsets. It's kind of a perfect already preserved. That's it. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak? You don't have to have filled out a card. You can come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Yeah, first test is my name and property address 6498 Shiloh Lane, then Texas and 76208 Shiloh Lane, 6498 Shiloh, not Shiloh, Shiloh, yeah, S-H-I-S-H-I-L-O. The property ID may be happy but 164525, 6498 Shiloh Lane and I came to Texas on December 2006 and I bought this piece of property for commercial use. And since then it's always been, always doing that. I had a permit from Marshall's office when the property used to be in Denham County and had a permit, had everything. 2015, 2016 I think the property annexed to the city of Denham and the code enforcement was after me and I spent a lot of time cleaning up, improve, whatever required by the code enforcement at the time. And right now I don't see any reason for my property to be zoned from RD5 to RR because I think my property should be zoned commercial, why? Number one, it's always been for commercial use since I bought the property. Number two, the shape, if you look at the shape of the property, it's irregular, a very funky shape, cannot be used for residential. Number three, city use my property for the pipe, water pipes, fire hydrants, cable company, telephone company, everybody place their equipment on my property and therefore they all have access from time to time. It's impossible to use my property for residential use, impossible. That's against humanitarian privacy. And if you look at the end of the property next to mine and they're using the property for commercial use also, even though it's not zoned and they have two house on the property and they use for residential, but the back they use for the storage for mulch and trucks parking there. Then the two property in front of me, from time to time, they've been doing that for a long time because they don't have city water there. So they will let the sewage water leaking or passing by through my property. Over years, years, eventually all the water goes to the lake where our drinking water is from. I encourage the city to push this area to get the city water, city sewage or everything to protect our environment. But just for that reason, it's impossible for me to build up a house there, impossible. It's not good for the environment. And also if you look down the other property, they have abandoned mobile home, they're very trash. Nobody cares. At the very end, there's a bunch of properties. They all used that property for commercial use somehow. One piece of property used for fixing normal business had four or five people working for him. So I'm suggesting maybe it's better to zone this whole area for commercial area, for little area for MN or industry or warehouse. If the park, 10X park is a cross street from sewage road, and I would do whatever accommodating the developer in the future, have a little ice cream machine or ice cream store or even cake or drinks, something give the convenience to the people going to the park or in the neighborhood because this whole area doesn't know commercial at all. And I wouldn't do anything to follow the rules, the codes, and the compatible with development. And I appreciate all the effort, you know, the city and the council and the planning department, all the staffs put the effort there. But I want to come to a state with economic growth and the property value will be going up instead of going down and also protect our environment. I believe Councilmember Armitage has a question or comment. Yeah, just a comment for staff. Actually, I didn't want to address myself, the zoning aspect of this, but the water issue stood out. So if, I mean, it's for our water staff, so I guess the city manager, if that could be checked on issue with the sewage and drinking water and drainage and that seems like a concern. Any questions for the speaker? Seeing none. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Please come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Anybody else wishing to speak? So procedurally, Mr. City Attorney, we've talked about continuing, I believe, the public hearing because of the changes and the city initiated rezonings and the discussions that we're going to have with people who've sent in comment cards and also people who've spoken tonight about some of their concerns. So what's the, I mean, we are going to have discussion, but what's the step here that we need to take currently? If the Council wanted to continue the public hearing to some, it would either do so by either to a date certain or an event certain. And that would be a motion? Yes. Okay. That would be a motion. All right. So we are, that means we're still in the public hearing right now. Yes. That's correct. All right. So discussion for, yes, Council Member Hussbeth. Well, I have discussion, but if you want to wrap up the motion to kind of close the comment section, I can wait or at least... Yeah. I think we can get a motion in a second, but I don't think if we vote, then I think it forecloses discussion. Right. Yeah. So let me do this. Okay. Council Member Armitter. Sorry. Actually, I meant to request to speak before the motion. So I was about to postpone, I went to move to postpone as recommended by staff because I thought that seemed like a reasonable idea, but before that, I just actually wanted to ask staff to comment on this issue of the, you know, postponing to a date certain versus postponing indefinitely, what your take on this is, because I think the reasoning behind it is sensible. Sure. If we, Council decides to postpone to a date certain, then we would not need to notice, but if we do have to do a date indefinite, then my understanding is that we would have to notice for that public hearing. But we don't have a date identified currently. We know that. We need a couple of months to get the rezoning that we're talking about, the city initiative rezoning is done, but we don't have a date certain at this time. Got it. Well, I want the option that involves notifying people. So, I mean, I don't want it postponed indefinitely into the future, but I know that neither does anybody else, I don't think, on this Council. So I move to postpone, how do I put that, move to postpone indefinitely to a date uncertain? What is the exact terminology? I think if I may, I mean, our rules of procedure as well as Robert's provide for a date or event certain, there's no such creature as indefinite. What this Council can do is close the public hearing and then decide to keep this item open and then with that request a new public hearing to be done in the future or close this item and then do that with that direction to staff. There's many ways to get there, which would accommodate staff. If the goal is to get this, to have a new public hearing in the future on the zoning map, you could simply close the public hearing, close the item, take no action, and then reschedule that public hearing when staff is ready to come to have that. You okay with that? And staff's very flexible in doing that and certainly if we needed to go to a date specific, we could prepare for that date, whether it's 60 or 90 days, so. So what I'm hearing is that, at least from a notification perspective, if we close the public hearing, we take no action on it, when staff wants to bring it back, we can ask for a public hearing on it, it gets re-noticed just like it would any other public hearing and gets put on the agenda when it's appropriate, when staff is ready to bring those forward. Yes? The only concern or what I might ask is, because we went through a notification process filing or sending letters that I think that we'd be better off going to a date certain so that we don't run the risk of having to re-notice. So I think I would feel better about if we just. You're right. That's a good point that I didn't consider, but you're right about that. Okay. So Councillor Marmotra, are you still wanting to make a motion? I withdrew my motion because the goal that I wanted was not obtainable through the means I was attempting. Okay. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. Could the event certain be the city initiated rezoning substantially complete? Would that? I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. I was trying to get a date. To do an event certain as opposed to a date certain, and that's probably kind of a question for legal is, would an event certain be the city initiated rezoning is substantially complete? Substantially, is there some type of percentage, 90%? When staff feels that they have completed as much as what substantially completed their rezoning. The problem is there's going to be many of these. This isn't going to be a one council meeting and they're done unless we're here for 24 hours on the city initiated rezoning. I mean, those are going to be coming up to August. Start bringing those in batches in advance of the date to adopt them. No, no. I understand that. But it's going to be several meetings. It's not just going to be one. So except for those, don't have to be at the same meeting. So it would be recommended of August the 6th, which would be a council meeting, which would give staff sufficient time to be able to start batching, bring some of those forward. And if for some reason we needed to postpone at that point in time or do something different, we could. But it'd give us plenty of time to bring those city initiated forward. All right. Council member Meltzer. So I'll move that we continue the hearing until August 6th. All right. Do we have a second? Mayor Pro Tem? Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second for a continuous of the public hearing to August the 6th. Yes, council member Hudson. A couple of notes for staff that I would like to see when we come back. I would like to explore a process where we could expedite the city portion of the rezoning. I don't know if there's, I don't know how that works. I know it's it's P and Z and city council, but I don't know how, if there's a way to sync those to make that go faster than it normally would, then I don't know if that's an option, but that's my ask that we explore that. And then two, I'd like to see something kind of captured that would then identify if a property was annexed or not. I think the last speaker makes a good point and that factors into the conversation. It's one thing involuntarily annexed, right? So I think to me that matters. You know, if an individual has a piece of property that we invited in without the invitation, that's going to play into my consideration and weighing their options and kind of how that vote proceeds, because it's just important to me. And so I'd like to capture that somewhere in some column if a property is involuntarily annexed just for my calculation and deliberation. And I think, yeah, I think that's the that's the gist of it. Thank you. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah. You know, I would hate for people to think that the sort of only way that they can get their specific issues addressed is to come at this particular meeting, and I don't think that's true. I think they've had lots of access to staff. I just wonder if anybody's listening, watching or thinking about this, if staff could kind of say what the other process is, Monday through Friday, you know, normal times where they can get the attention of staff on their particular issues. Okay, before we move any further, I've just gotten notice that if you're leaving when we leave here to try to avoid the intersection of Carroll and University Drive, there's a major accident there that they've lost power, which means probably the signals are out. So PD and Fire Department are on route or on the they're on the scene. So just want to put that out there sort of as a public service announcement. Okay, go ahead, Councilmember Meltzer. Yes. I think Scott was about to respond. Yes, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Absolutely. So staff is available Monday through Friday from eight to five. So they call our office, set up an appointment, drop by. We have the Denton code 2030.com website. They can provide notification on that portal. They can email staff. We have staff directory available on the website and by all means, you know, just if they want to have a phone conversation, we would do that. With that being said, we will be bringing those in individual groups and whether it's geographic or whether it's by type throughout the process. So we'll be updating council as we go along and to Councilmember Husspeth's question as far as us being able to provide the documentation, we'll do that. The support of the history on the property and try to sync up P and Z to council wouldn't necessarily be the same as what we do with our typical now that we're providing a gap in between. We'll probably tighten that window up where it'll go to P and Z and then come directly to council. I would just underscore that we've had several comments tonight about how accessible and helpful staff has been. So you don't have to feel like you have to protest or you can't be heard. You can be heard. Thanks. And I might also add, I mean, we have, I think, eight staff sitting downstairs right now still. And I'd like to thank staff because all of this couldn't be possible without the efforts. Many just you don't see the work that they do and behind the scenes and it's critical. We couldn't be where we're at today without the staff that we have. And we have excellent staff here at the city of Denham. All right. Thank you. No, seeing no more requests to speak, we've got a motion on the floor to postpone to date certain of August the sixth, sixth and a second by Mayor Pro Tem. Let's vote on the board, please. And that's a continuation of the public hearing. Yeah. Motion carries 7-0. Our last agenda item are concluding items. Councilmember Husspeth. Line it up. So I'm going to try to power through these really quick. So for Aaron, I have an ask, just going forward, I'd like to know or ask you to tally and put in our status updates when we have any particular legal item or pending matter that individual members may have conversations with outside council. So if I have a conversation with outside council, I'd like that to be tracked separately. So not so much in our meetings, but if it's a private conversation or individual just one-on-one, I just kind of want to understand that dynamic and I can get with you offline on what I'm seeking, but if you'll make a note, I'll follow up with you. Then Mr. City Manager, I'd like to talk or explore the issue or the option of green painting on the pavement for bike lanes, walking lanes. I think that's been explored before, but I want to kind of get up to speed on where we are policy-wise on that, if that's an option or if not, why. And then I want to give an invite anyone that's not driven, because this is a source of contention, and so I want to invite anyone that's not driven Mayhill lately to drive that segment between, is that Spencer between, what is that that separates Walmart and Home Depot? Whatever road that is. That's Spencer. Yeah, so Spencer, that stretch of Mayhill from Spencer South is absolutely amazing. I mean, the trees on the left-hand side, I mean, because I know that was a big point of contention to add Mayhill, but I'm trying to tell you, you can't even see the landfill for the trees. I mean, it is absolutely beautiful, and it's well done. And so whoever planned and kind of set that aside, it was absolutely barren there before, and now you can't even, I wasn't sure where I was. So I think that is just dynamic, whoever planned that, and I know that was a big talking point, so I was really pleased to see that. I want to thank staff again for the MLK work with the trash receptacle. So they increased the size, height, put a gate on it, looks fantastic. So thank you for that. And then one last thing I'd like to ask you to look into, Mr. City Manager, Arby's there, Luke 288, behind there, they have their grease trap on the grass. And so I'm concerned about that. If that's where it goes, that's fine, but my concern is if they miss, it's in the, you know, I just, I don't know if that's right. So if you can take a look at that and let me know. Mayor Pro Tem. - Thank you, Mayor. I know that our Parks Department is working on a new master plan, and I'd like to make a recommendation that they coordinate with the master gardeners and/or other organizations to look at the possibility of something similar to the Dallas Arboretum or Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, granted it would be many years before it would be developed to that point, but to get that in motion or started to look at something on that line. - Council Member Briggs. - So a new story came out about chalking tires in that a court has said it violates the constitution. And so I would just like our legal department to look into that. And if, yes, and see if that's something that would affect us just to, if the city of Denton is still doing it. Also we all know there's issues with parking around campus. And when we approved the Oak Gateway plan, there was talk about zone parking within it. And I would like for a conversation about what zone parking is, maybe just a blurb and how that would look if we applied it around campus. And then lastly, I would like to ask for a list of directors and department heads, the decision-making, the decision-makers here that work in the city, and just to check mark if they live in the city of Denton or not, or in the city limits, and just all this in a percentage tally, just so that we can start the conversation about incentives that we may need or things that we can do to, if there's things that we can work on and things that we might not be able to fix, just to make our city more desirable as a place to live and work, especially as we're bringing in new people in from other places, other cities, other states. And I know that there's some cities that do that. They use incentives to get people to actually live in their city. So I'm just curious. >> Okay. Councilmember Armitage? >> Okay. Just a few words on two things. Number one, early voting happening right now for city council elections. So everybody go out and vote. And number two, Jazz Fest this weekend. Everybody come out. It is free. One of the best things about Denton. >> Okay. All right. Seeing no more requests for concluding items, we will stand adjourned at 1036.