We will get ready. I'll open the city council portion of the meeting and then I'll call our one-off work session item.
So today is Tuesday, December 5th, 2023 and it is 1102 a.m. and we do have a forum for the council.
So I'll call that meeting in order to turn it over to the chair of the P&Z.
Thank you mayor. With the quorum present, I will call this joint meeting of P&Z, city council, parks recreation board to order at 1102 a.m.
And with the quorum, I, George Feary, the chair of the parks recreation and beautification board, will also call this joint meeting.
Great. So the first item is, and so welcome to everybody and thank you for being here.
Our first item is item A, ID 231988, receive report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the community priorities for design downtown Denton plan.
Thank you mayor. So Tina Fergens, deputy director of development services. So thank you all for taking time out of your day and being here for this discussion.
So we are excited to be able to share with you where we are with the design downtown Denton project for the city.
We're delighted to have you all together. We know this is a very important project for the city.
We are doing this project per council's direction. So hence why it's even more important as we move forward.
Today we are going to be seeking your feedback on the community priorities.
We will ask you to participate in some minty meter exercises, so it will require your cell phone at a certain point in time in the meeting. So if you want to get your electronic devices handy, you can have that.
But Zach will be very clear as to when we're seeking your feedback on those community priorities.
Those community priorities have been developed based upon all of the community engagement that has been done thus far with the project, and Zach will share some of that.
So what I would like to do is turn the podium over to Zach Lockram. He's with Men Collaborative and is our project manager.
Also, I'd like to note Cameron Robertson and Sean Jacobson on my team are also leading this effort. Cameron is project manager and Sean is assistant.
So if you ever have any questions related to the project, you're also more than welcome to reach out to them. So, Zach.
I just want to also do a quick reminder that we are being live streamed. So if we are speaking from the table, just make sure you're speaking up so that we can make sure that we're getting that caught in the microphone as well.
Thank you, Tina. Very excited to be here with you all today, especially on such a beautiful day in Denton. We've been having a wonderful time interacting with the community over the last few days and have gotten to continue our public engagement, which we will share a little bit about a little bit later as well.
Just quickly, our agenda will go over quick introductions and the project overview. I'll talk a little bit about our case for action and some of our key findings.
Talk about our public engagement results from this first phase. And as Tina said, the main portion of the meeting will be spent looking at our draft project vision and community priorities.
And the key piece of feedback that we want to make sure we're walking away with these meetings on is making sure that the priorities represent Council PZ and Park Board priorities and making sure that we have the right priorities, as that is what we are going to be building the actions that we will be taking on.
We'll do a little bit of next steps at the end. And I know all of you have a busy day with additional meetings as well, so we'll try and keep things moving along right on time.
My name is Zach Lockram. I am a partner at Mend Collaborative. We're an urban planning and landscape architecture firm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Austin, Texas, and we are the lead consultant on the Design Downtown Denton plan.
I'm joined by my partner, Michelle Bright, who is the principal in charge and conducts our quality control. Todd Austin, who's our deputy project manager.
And at other times when we're having some of the public meetings, you may also meet Sandy Molnar's Comstock, who will be leading our open space component.
We have a larger team as well, really excellent specialists in each of their fields. Post Oak Preservation is our historic preservation lead.
Nelson Nygaard, who's represented by Jackson Archer, who's here, is our mobility lead. And then we have two different groups working with us on the economic development strategy from a couple of different perspectives.
So Bill Fulton Group is an expert on really the city tools and has a lot of expertise and has actually been both a mayor and a council member in the past as well, and is really an expert on utilizing city funding to achieve strategic outcomes.
And the Catalyst Group brings additional expertise on the developer side and really understanding the ways that development works and the ways that that can partner with city to achieve a strategic vision as well.
For our project overview, we just want to start by telling you the area that we are primarily looking at.
This is the area bounded by Carroll Avenue, Eagle, Bell, and Mingo, Ruddle, and then University Drive. There are still times when we're talking to the public where we say downtown and people hear the square, but we're talking about an area that's bigger than the square as we're thinking about the interconnectedness of all of these sort of areas and neighborhoods in the central part of Denton as well.
In our project approach, we started off with a process of gathering public engagement and doing research, so looking at both the data that's available to us from the city, the county, the federal government, as well as looking at best practices and looking at similarly sized communities and some of the different things that they've done.
All of that research that we do has been combined into something that we call the case reaction, and it's what lays out our key findings and really helps point us towards what some of our key opportunities and challenges might be.
We also are doing public engagement, and we've done, and we'll go into a little bit more detail about that. We've done a really robust set of initial engagement that has helped us really develop key themes and priorities that have come directly from the community.
Those two things have really been put together into what we're calling the community priorities, and again, this is the main thing that we want to hear more from you about today.
The community priorities give us strategic direction of what it is that we are trying to achieve with this plan, which is really a 10 to 15 year vision, so they're giving us direction on the Denton that we want to be living in in 15 years, right?
Using those priorities, our next step will be to develop actions that are based on those priorities that will help us get towards the future. That will include projects, it will include policies, it will include programs, and using all of the strategic tools that the city can use to move towards one vision, which is ultimately the goal of the plan.
From that, we will also be developing catalyst projects, so these might be a little bit larger projects, but ones that will be especially transformative and will be key elements of moving forward. We'll also be looking at easy wins and pilot projects, so thinking about the ways that the steps that we need to take to get towards that vision over this 10 to 15 years that this plan will really be looking at.
You all may have noticed our great graphic design. One of the things that we wanted to do was really celebrate the artists who are here in the community, and we were able to work with a local artist named Jude Landry to help us develop this brand.
The D, as you see it, actually contains little elements that really highlight some of the key elements that will be working on the plan. Historic preservation, arts and culture, business and small development, sorry, small business and development, mobility and parks.
So the case for action document is a roughly 50 page presentation that I'm not going to make you all sit through, so you don't have to worry about that. That includes our research from data sources, it includes best practices and analysis, and we will actually be releasing a video recording of the entire case for action so that everyone who wants to dive in and see all of the different data elements will have the opportunity to do that.
But I have just a little snippet that I wanted to pull out for you all, specifically looking at some of the development analysis that we did.
We approached the development analysis by starting off by looking at our available land area and thinking about how we can analyze to find some of the best blocks for new improvements or new opportunities. We combined land value, ownership complex, tax based trends, infrastructure and conferences into an aggregate that helped us look at the way that sort of land is laid out.
And what we found from that is that right now as it stands with our current market, much of the downtown land will require some partnership to move projects forward. This is mainly due to the ownership complexity and the infrastructure and conferences that are on many of the blocks within this study area.
We also were looking specifically at, we wanted to see what impact has bringing land out of the floodplain that used to be in the floodplain had. And largely what we found is essentially a big part of our analysis was in the tax based trends and land values.
And because that's come out so recently, we actually don't know the impact yet. So we'll be continuing to closely monitor that and look at the ways that that kind of changes our opportunities.
In addition to doing an analysis of the land, we also did an analysis of forecast and looking at what we might be able to bring in in terms of new development in 10 years in terms of the demand.
Our forecast revealed that we have a market demand for more than 300,000 square feet of retail.
And despite the COVID impacts that we were also showing ability to be able to accommodate about 50,000 square feet of office space as well.
We also did an analysis looking at the market demand and found that we have an ability to absorb over 900 units within the downtown area in a variety of different housing types, including ownership and rental opportunities.
And really actually across the board from a financial perspective, some of the biggest needs were really in some of the luxury and upmarket opportunities as well as for seniors and assistive living.
We're going to talk for a minute about some of our public engagement results.
For our initial phase of public engagement, we did a number of both pop-up opportunities, so going out to different events that the community was present at and having conversations with them, as well as doing online engagement.
And we did three kind of main areas of opportunities. For each of them, you could do them either online or in person.
We had a social map, we had some visioning activities, and then we did a significant amount of surveys as well.
On the online component, we received over 900 comments on the online map. I like to call out, I was the project manager for the city of Houston's downtown plan.
You guys almost matched their number as a city of 140,000 compared to a city of three and a half million. So very impressive results in terms of the number of people who actually participated.
We had over 3,000 people actually visit the online portal. People were also able to upvote and downvote other people's comments, and we had a lot of interactions there as well, more than 3,000 total reactions, looking at the other different types of comments that people were leaving.
And then in addition to that, our pop-ups, there were 100 additional map comments that were left as a part of that.
There were some key themes that came out of the public engagement, and the circles that you see here are actually sized based on the number of comments we received on each of these areas.
So you can see that the top four areas were in bicycle and pedestrian mobility, retail and development, parks and public spaces, and arts and entertainment.
And one of the things that I think is really interesting about that list is, you know, one of the things that we've been thinking about a lot is what are the irreplaceable economic drivers of downtown? What are the competitive advantages that you don't have anywhere else in the city and that you probably wouldn't be able to replicate, at least not with a lot of work?
Some of those things that have come up are the walkability downtown, so you see that bike pad was one of the key things that we received a lot of comments on, the small business environment downtown, the open spaces downtown, and of course the arts and entertainment.
So in terms of alignment between things that the community cares about and things that are possible economic drivers for downtown, we see actually a lot of alignment between those areas, and I think that's really exciting because that really helps us point towards some opportunities and ways forward.
We also did a visioning activity where we were asking sort of broader, more kind of emotional qualitative questions around why people love downtown and what they think downtown needs more of.
We received several hundred comments in each of these categories that have also helped us with understanding some of the sentiment and the where and why behind some of the other elements that we've got.
And then we also did a survey with our businesses, specifically looking for business owners and business managers to tell us a little bit more about what attracted them to downtown, how well the space is serving them today, what they feel contributes to their businesses, and what they feel they need more of, as well as what challenges that they've had within their businesses.
And that's another sort of very interesting set of detailed data that we've been able to have.
Last night we had a really wonderful vision workshop where we talked about some of these community priorities that we're going to be approaching today.
We had around 50 participants do a variety of different activities, really wonderful night and was really excited and I know at least a few of you in the room were able to attend last night as well.
So, I'm going to get into the meat of our day today.
Just wanted to bring this back up again and just sort of remind you, the case for action engagement have produced a set of community priorities and a vision statement that we've also worked on with our advisory group.
Those community priorities will then be translated into actions that we need to take in order to achieve the plan's vision.
And those actions will be further broken down in order for us to think about the phasing, the timing, and the emphasis on different types of actions that could be taken.
So, again, our setting the community priorities correctly is extremely important for our ability to make sure that we are creating actions and recommendations that will move us in the direction that the community wants to go.
I'm going to start by just pulling up the vision statement that has been developed alongside our advisory committee.
All of you also have printouts of these just so that you have them in front of you if you want to be able to read them in a little more detail.
I'm not going to read everything on every slide, but I will read this one out because it's important.
Design downtown Denton to be a more walkable, beautiful, fun destination for shopping, working, learning, and recreation that also serves as a hub of opportunity, welcoming all Dentonites.
Cultivate a vibrant and diverse residential community, preserve and expand the distinctive local businesses, foster a strong sense of community, and safeguard the historic and artistic character while promoting growth and development.
This is where we're trying to go in the next 15 years.
This is where we want to land.
The community priorities have been broken down into these eight categories, which again were the major themes that came up through our public engagement process, as well as the research that we have done.
Right now, I have them ordered by the number of comments that we received on them in the initial round of engagement.
So bike and pedestrian safety and mobility, retail and commercial development, parks and public space, arts, entertainment, and events, traffic and transit, safety, housing development, and culture.
This is the part where we're going to ask you to bring out your phones, because we're going to have a little bit of interactive materials to be able to kind of look at this in the room while we're all together here.
I'll give you all a minute to get in there.
If you have trouble with the QR code, you can also join at menti.com, and then the passcode here is 19671106.
We've got about seven people on so far. Let's give it another minute or two.
If anyone's having trouble, Michelle and Todd could come around and help as well.
So just raise your hand if you're, if you're having trouble getting in there.
We've got 10 people on, 11, 14.
These guys will come around and help you out on this.
That's a good question.
Okay, so I'll give you some more instructions as we move forward as well.
So starting with bicycle and pedestrian safety and mobility, key priorities that came about out of this was a real focus on enhancing walkability, including sidewalks, lighting, landscaping, crosswalks, implementing safety measures at some of the dangerous intersections, connecting the university, the squares, the transit centers, both physically through public realm and infill development as well as through a common downtown brand, promoting safer environment for cyclists by expanding protected bike lanes.
And regularly closing some side streets for public events and community gatherings.
So you have a printout of each of these in front of you so that you can kind of keep looking at them.
What we're going to do now on your phone, you're going to have two questions that pop up for you and it's a little slider you can check from one to five.
First, how well do you feel these priorities capture downtown needs so are we hitting on the right things in this category.
The second one is, if you're thinking about today, this is for benchmarking a little bit if you're thinking about today, how well do you think we're currently achieving those priorities.
So when you put those in and hit submit, we'll actually begin to see them on the screen.
And what you'll see, the 3.8 and 3.2 that we have right now are the averages. And then you can also see the distribution of the votes. So we can see most people are voting fours and fives in this section.
In this section, we're sitting kind of in the middle around a three.
We've had 10 people. I think they have a few more coming.
I think we've got 16. Okay, great. So the results in this one, as you can see, is that, you know, we have a fairly wide consensus that this is fairly important and that we're moving, that this is in the right direction.
And the sort of consensus is that we're doing okay in this area. We're kind of right in the middle in terms of how well we're currently serving this particular area.
Okay, we'll move on to the next one.
In retail and commercial development, invest in areas around the square to improve businesses and housing variety, public safety, overall aesthetics, improve public spaces to encourage foot traffic and inspire building upkeep.
Emphasize the historical component and preservation. Protect and promote the local business community, especially, well, it says including, but I think one of the things we've heard a lot about is continuing to really move beyond the square and really seeing that business community grow.
And then filling empty storefronts and vacant lots with unique local shops and food and beverage options.
So we have the same questions. How well do these priorities capture the needs? And how do you think downtown is currently doing in these priorities?
14, I think we had 16 total. 17. Okay, perfect.
We have a couple more now too. So you can see on this one, you know, we are at a point where, again, we have a pretty solid consensus that these are capturing downtown's needs pretty well.
And similarly, you can see that we are kind of doing right about in the middle in terms of how well we're doing currently.
Parks and public space, creating a network of green spaces and public parks with amenities such as community gardens, picnic areas, kids play areas, adding more trees and landscaping and public places, building outdoor amenities like public seating, restrooms, water fountains and more.
And then we have a number of other priorities. So we have a number of priorities, including the city of downtown, which is the most important one.
I think this is the highest one we've had in terms of capturing the priorities so far.
And again, we're doing okay. The interesting, this one, the previous distribution was kind of, most people actually did both three. This one we have some people who are lower down here at two and actually a larger group and then some folks who are a little bit higher as well.
Arts and entertainment, creating a marketing brand for the downtown area and using the brand to tie downtown to the surrounding community, encouraging promoting public art and musical initiatives and festivals, building on current successes by adding new activities and events, especially for children and families, supporting the addition of interactive art, music, sculptures and lighting to create engaging spaces, and then exploring the addition and improvement of a variety of music and art venues, stages and theaters.
So again, one of our potential economic development drivers downtown as well.
So again, a fairly strong consensus that we have captured some of the needs pretty well. In this case, we're actually seeing that people feel that we're actually doing a little bit better in this area than we are in some of the other ones as well.
In traffic and transit, improve roadway safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists by implementing traffic closures on certain streets during events, as well as exploring road right sizing and traffic calming initiatives, improving parking availability and management by upgrading lots with trees landscaping, adding wayfinding signage, considering construction of public parking garage in downtown area, enhancing accessibility and expanding and improving bus routes to the transit center and other key destinations.
So again, a fairly strong consensus that we have captured some of the needs pretty well.
So again, a good consensus a little bit higher than some of the other ones, but this is another one where it looks like folks feel that we are not doing quite as well currently.
Safety, improving perception of safety by partnering with service providers to address homelessness concerns and needs, designing streets with infrastructure to enable street closures and support outdoor events, define key pedestrian corridors, improve streetscapes, shade canopy and lighting, and improving maintenance and cleanliness on sidewalks.
Another one, we have again a fairly good consensus that we're addressing the right areas, and it looks like the especially looking at the distribution.
This is one that a lot of people feel that we need some significant work in.
In housing development, address rising rents and housing affordability through increased housing supply, mixed use development and more residential options, providing more housing options downtown, establishing a variety of housing that will appeal to many different residents.
Okay.
So it looks like this one has I think probably rated the lowest out of the priorities that we have so far.
This is the final one, culture, foster increased diversity and inclusion through the acknowledgement of history and increased opportunities for all Dentonites, protect and continue to embody what people love most about the feel of Denton, including the community pride, welcoming atmosphere and the historic scale, celebrate and connect downtown to Denton's colleges and universities, and then highlight downtown culture within the broader Denton community and county.
Okay.
So again, a fairly strong consensus, a little bit lower than some of the other areas, and then this I think is maybe the highest one we've seen in terms of how we are currently doing in terms of the culture area.
One of the other things that we want to do with you and this will be coming up on your screens now is just understanding what your priorities are within these different categories. If you were sort of organizing them. So as I said, our initial sort of these are currently the order that I gave you and was the order of the number of comments that we received on them.
And we really believe that all of these areas are important, and these are all areas where when we're thinking about improvements and catalyst projects, especially we want projects that will address multiple of these areas we want things that are working in common with each other.
However, the benchmarking that we just did, as well as thinking about how the sort of prioritizes these as kind of key needs and key opportunities is also an important component of the ways that we would work to select some of those projects and put emphasis on some projects over others.
So it looks like someone has kind of figured it out and all you do is you kind of drag them up and start to put them in order, and we'll be seeing the averages pop up here in terms of the way that you you all organize them.
Once you've got them all in there in the order that you want you just hit submit and then we'll see it pop up on here as well.
Okay.
folks in there we're maybe waiting for.
We had a couple more submitting earlier.
We'll give you another minute here to get it submitted.
We'll give you another minute here.
Okay.
Okay, okay.
I think we're, I think we're here then.
So, the order that you all just gave us retail and commercial development. First, traffic and transit priorities. Second, bike and pedestrian safety and mobility is third safety is fourth.
Very close to a tie in fifth is arts and entertainment and events and parks and public space. And then, housing development and culture are the last areas here.
So definitely a very interesting organization. You know, we continue to see retail and commercial development being one of those key drivers of what makes downtown downtown.
That makes a lot of sense. And part of the reason that we asked some of these questions is you'll remember in the mapping exercise where we were getting the initial comments.
People are making specific comments about, you know, specific opportunities for improvement. So, the top one that came out of that was the pedestrian safety and bike safety. And a lot of that we think is because people were putting like there were 20 pins looking at specific different intersections, whereas in some of the other categories, people might just make one comment that was more general for a larger area.
So that's part of the reason that we're kind of asking about priorities in multiple ways to in order to kind of think about that. And as I said, I think one of the key things that we'll be really looking at is what types of catalyst projects could move forward retail and commercial development, the transportation priorities, parks and open space and the arts, all at the same time, you know, so these aren't mutually exclusive, but it does help us in terms of thinking a little bit about our emphasis.
We actually asked this question last night as well and I will show you the order that they came in, in terms of the community that visited us last night. So again, retail and commercial development at the top in both, both times that we've done this.
Bike, pedestrian safety and mobility came in second safety, I think I'm going to switch back and forth here real quick safety came in fourth but came in third with the general public. We saw the parts in public space, arts and housing all being fairly close together in that other one.
And then we had traffic and transit and culture coming up as the last couple with the public group.
We're going to kind of continue asking these prioritization questions so there will be some online activities as well that will match up with this as we're kind of continuing to broaden the feedback from a variety of different areas, but the council member here actually brought up a very interesting question that I'm wondering if you would mind restating.
Yeah, I just asked, why is number eight separate from number four on the previous list, why is culture separate item then arts entertainment and events. Yeah, I mean I think that's a really, really good opportunity and actually I think in looking at some of these a little bit more deeply.
Another potential opportunity is the traffic and transit and the bike and pedestrian safety and mobility. A lot of those improvements are the same types of improvements they're just looked at from a couple of different perspectives.
So I do think that there might be some opportunities for us to potentially combine some of these categories in order to simplify things a little bit more that might again sort of change some of the, the ways of people looking at it in the way that we originally developed it that arts
was a little bit more about like the Big Bang things, if you will, the festivals and those sorts of areas whereas culture is more of an everyday lived experience, but they really play into each other so I think your point is is actually a very good one.
I think at this point we want to open it up to other questions or opportunities it seems like we have a fairly good consensus in the room that we're pointing in a lot of the right directions that there may be some things here and there that could be added or expanded upon
some challenges that we might want to address as well, but it seems like from this group that we have here we actually have a fairly strong direction that we we have kind of a lot of the right things going on here.
So, Mr Mayor maybe I will allow you first if you have any statements or questions you'd like to bring up and then we can open it up to the room as well.
So I thank you. Great presentation. And so what I'll just kind of shotgun my notes right and you, you work them in as me.
So, you talk about an early in your presentation talks about bringing properties out of the floodplain and that hadn't been studied enough or there's not enough time.
I'm curious about that because West Prairie Street was done I think two, three years ago. And so that it seems like we should have some data from that, but I'll take your direction that then you touch on luxury market, if you will, I think you said
maybe retail, if maybe said retail, and then we had our own study on housing that said from a from a housing stock we need higher end housing as well. So, I want to know more about that component.
Because I think that's important for us to capture and understand what your analysis is showing there.
If you hear about your process on accounting for voices that don't you don't hear from 151,000 people you heard from a percentage of those how do you then factor in those others in your analysis.
So I'd love to hear how the sausage is made. And then definition of local.
That's a big one for me, because you have like the shop local all those things but you could have a local person that owns a franchise right is that local, or is that franchise, you know, so just kind of how this document is going to guide those decisions.
I think are what they're leveraging as a definition for that is important to me from an art standpoint, I don't understand how you account for the prohibition, or the anxiety or the sentient opinions on using taxpayer dollars to pay for that right so
there is that there is a hill to overcome, we can debate on how big that hill is. But how do you account for that in your analysis of suggestion for our in that need and how do we overcome that understanding those challenges that would face anything there.
And then the definition of affordable you said affordable. Obviously, not trying to get you to, you know, co op something but just kind of what is your definition what, what is that range of what does that look like.
When you say that in your study or your report or whatever we're having these conversations would be helpful and then lastly, we get into this a lot when you're talking about downtown area you talk about bringing stuff out of the floodplain.
Most of that land is the develop truly accessible, able to be developed versus hey there's a piece of land here that we're never going to do anything with, or there's a traffic encumbered to something, but just that develop land analysis or kind of specific areas where you see
opportunities, despite other areas where there may be opportunity which can't get to it, or it's too far off or turn make a left turn here is not doable but it's an empty piece of land so Google Maps view versus reality analysis.
Yeah, and those are those are all great I we're gonna I'm going to take down notes on everybody's comments here I might not be able to actually address them all in the room today but they're all definitely elements that we will follow up on, I think I will just
go to that last point with regards to the components that just came out of the floodplain most recently with the most recent projects, a large portion of that is developable.
There are some challenges in terms of some of the infrastructure encumbrances and other things like that but that actually is an area that we would, I think, see a lot of the data that we were getting and you remember the floodplain map was just updated
last June so the most recent assessment data that we have is a year old, and those assessments haven't been updated yet so as we're getting more information from that we'll be able to continue to update that.
And as we're getting into the development of some of these catalyst projects. We really will be working to drill down on what the real numbers look like in terms of thinking about how we are.
I will just say flat out that one of my goals is to make sure that the city doesn't spend a cent on something that it wouldn't have to in order for a development to happen.
Right. But we want to understand what is that math problem that the developers are doing, so that we can be smart about thinking about where incentives are needed and when they're not.
And when they're providing public benefit and when they're not so that'll be a portion of our analysis that will kind of continue to get deeper as well.
So these are all great comments.
And it may be the only I again I don't want to dive too deeply into everything but I do want to say, we see a need for units across the income spectrum.
Right now, the, the higher end part of the spectrum is an area that has been missing from new development downtown, but we also do see challenges in affordability for people who have been in the community for a long time.
And when I say affordable, I mean, homes that are affordable to people based on their incomes, right, so every every single one of us needs an affordable home, based on our income and we all probably have different incomes.
So we're looking at the actual distribution of people who are in the community now, as well as the trend lines in terms of what people we see are moving to the community and want to be in the community and looking at how we approach finding
housing that is going to match those needs in the long term.
Councilmember.
Yeah, you call on whomever it's easier that way Councilmember bird.
I understand the city of business running at about 50% somewhere there in rental units, which personally, I think it's rather high.
I just had an opportunity to speak with the president of University of North Texas.
We had a conversation related to housing. He noted that they had to turn away 2500 students that were trying to find housing on campus.
So of course that's pushing students out into the community into our rental space, which is quite concerning.
Of course they can take care of that with all the money that they have.
But my thing is, is the traffic and transit.
I think our traffic and transit system here and didn't needs a lot of work.
Everyone and everyone knows in the room that I'm not a fan of our current transit situation.
And but I'm also thinking about the folks that we do invite into our community that stays at the embassy suites in all of our hotels tourism folks that are outliers out there on 35.
And then we invite them into downtown to go to our breweries and do adult, you know, stuff that adults do.
And then we expect them for them to come go back out to where they ever they came from in whatever manner that they came from.
It could be driving in with a car looking for parking, which we got a parking problem.
And then they got to go home in that same car. So we don't know what they're doing in between.
So I think the traffic and transit needs to be a little higher on the list of concerns.
And of course, that goes along with safety for all of us.
I think our arts and entertainment area.
It seems like to me right now, because we're at a crossroads, it seems like we've got to start looking at districts.
We have an entertainment district. If we have an arts district, if we have an entertainment district, I don't know what we're going to call those districts.
But that means that we're growing and people have different interests.
So I think that if we can get our traffic and transit, you know, if people want to walk, I'm talking about walkability and bike ability.
How does all of that translate to us getting them our visitors from 35E over into downtown and back to 35E after they've done whatever they're going to do?
That's concerning to me. That's a couple of my priorities there.
And so the arts and entertainment and events and then the traffic and transit and then the culture that we're sending out there to the world is that if you want to be inclusive,
you're a creative person, if you're an academic person, you know, and if you're working and living and playing here, that's part of our culture.
We want to capture you into all of this. You know, that's the other thing.
And of course, I'm safety. Safety is a priority for me.
I'm glad that our city has taken on the opportunity to have ambassadors downtown now.
I think that's coming up very soon. That's that's important.
But the whole traffic and transit thing bothers me terribly. So with that being said,
I believe that our downtown area also is exuding this era and feeling of the 19 whatever 30s and 40s. We kind of like that, apparently. We like the old myths, but the newness of it all.
So we got to bring these developers in that has the same kind of mindset. Yeah. Oh, you know, where do we find these folks? Yeah. We'll leave it right there. Thank you.
Thank you. Those are very astute observations. I appreciate that.
Let's go to Metzler and then council member.
Right. I'm sorry. I know your first name and I was like, my bad. People always just call me Meltzer.
First of all, I would just say I'm really heartened by how well I feel this captures community sentiment.
I recognize Denton in this. Secondly, just my main focus would be that the whole out of the floodplain thing.
It's not an asterisk. It's not a, you know, one more column. It's a historic opportunity.
It's a very unique moment that the voters have just approved the funding to make that happen.
It's a landmass. They were talking about it. If we can really embrace the directions that come out of the vision and look holistically at what the greater downtown experience would be and create a, you know, an aspirational vision to enroll people in that comes from the community.
You know, this is this this is a truly long term, you know, and if I may, I think that matches so well with Councilmember Byrd's conversation about districts as well.
Yeah. Thank you.
You know, I just to speak to to the community sentiment, you know, in addition to all of the engagement we've done, we've also done a significant number of stakeholder interviews as well with people from a variety of different perspectives.
I think that I think it's it's astonishing. We've heard far more consensus than not from a wide variety of very, very different people with very, very different perspectives. There's a lot of different perspectives on how to get there.
But there is a community that is unified around a broad and I think good consensus around what downtown can be for den. So that's it's a very exciting to work in that that atmosphere.
Yeah, I appreciate the comments of the mayor and then your phone with him because my comments relate sort of the reverse of that and that is so if we're trying to achieve these goals and you have you to have a dialogue about.
Yes, those are those are goals in alignment with Denton, and Councilman also mentioned that this seems to be an alignment. I think we've always been trying to meet our citizens goals. Yeah. So, if we're, if we're agreeing with the goals of the goals, we mostly were getting four pluses, a lot of those categories, but we were getting two to three at best on how well we're attaining it.
We've been trying to attain it for 100 years, you know, or maybe since the downtown and then blew up in the 70s or so. So, what, I guess, what aren't we achieving and why aren't we achieving would be the questions I have, because we've been trying to get to these things for 50 years.
Yeah, and I that's extremely astute and I think that one of the real opportunities here is is this issue of the devil being in the details. I don't know while we've had this sort of consensus and we have a strong idea I think of where downtown needs to be.
We haven't yet had a moment that I'm aware of, at least in the research that we've done where all of the city's sort of tools and strategies were all aligned towards a singular vision at the same time, and I think that really working through the details.
I think about the funding tools, the different types of regulatory tools, the different types of programmatic tools and how important things like the ambassadors, for example, can be as a component of that as well, as well as working to align a public vision, and then the private and even nonprofit responses, again, all moving towards the same thing so that we really have a lockstep ability to move those things forward in a really cohesive and comprehensive way.
So, you know, as we are moving into the development of these catalysts and the development of these recommendations, we're going to be looking deeply at the funding sources, the different types of tools, both that the city already has, but also ones that are available to the folks in the state
of Texas that we haven't used yet to see if they're appropriate for opportunities, and so I think that's going to be a really important component of that.
I wanted to have just a real brief follow up, and that is another comment that came out of last night's workshop was over planning versus organic.
So while I 100% agree with what you just said, I think we do need to be mindful to let it form the way it needs to form on its own as opposed to pushing a particular narrative.
No, I totally agree with that as well and I think that that it comes back to.
I started my career in Houston we didn't have zoning, we didn't have regulatory tools we didn't do any of that stuff. We had to work with the public and the private landowners to achieve strategic visions and be sophisticated about the ways that we're nudging in certain
ways but there's other things that need to happen organically and that we're facilitating in the right ways to get some of the things that we need for the community, especially if they're things that ultimately the market won't produce, but that in a lot of cases
we're letting the market do its thing and making sure that we can move in the right directions. And that's going to be an important part of really thinking through the strategy and thinking through how to bring partners to the table in terms of the private
sector or nonprofits that are also going to be strategically aligned with the city's goals in those pieces as well in order to achieve that.
That's a great question. Sir, I can't see your name plate I'm sorry. Joe Holland.
I think it goes without saying that safety is or ought to be the first priority. It doesn't make any difference how entertaining anything is. If somebody isn't safe or doesn't perceive that they're going to be safe, that's going to keep them away.
Now, and I want to bounce off, you know, the bird is the word so I'm going to bounce off of that a little bit. People who come to our community, I can actually talk better than this, it's my microphone.
They come downtown and they're slapped with a feeling of not being safe. Now I don't think that there's crime going on this downtown, but the perception, the boogeyman coming out from the shadows, boom, that kind of thing frightens people.
And if they don't feel safe, they're going to stay away. I think that's hugely important. I was walking on the square yesterday and I'm sure a very, very nice, very well-educated man rolled down his window and there wasn't anybody else next to him.
I know he was talking to me. He said, "Hey, when are you going to fix the," some word I don't know, "streets?" And I told him it was coming, it was happening very soon, but that's what I hear.
I hear the problem from downtown, in my world, people are concerned about the streets and about the perceived safety of the downtown area. You've hit on something I think that's really important there as well, is that a lot of the little things that we do can help some with those perceptions.
Then there's other bigger things that we need to do in order to more directly address some of the challenges that we have with unhoused people, with drug abuse, with some of those other issues.
I think that our strategy is likely to take both approaches in terms of how do we help bring resources to downtown that can help with some of the big needs that folks have, things like the ambassadorship program, which would actually allow there to be folks that are present and able to assist with challenges, while also working to build up more activity downtown.
I was there on Saturday, obviously, for the tree lighting, and I didn't feel at any point in anything that I saw that there were any safety concerns during that. There were so many people, there were so active, and so I think it's one of the big things is we do need to deal with that, we also need to do things that are going to continue to attract more people and have more people in downtown, around downtown, because that's also going to improve that perception.
While also taking care of the little things, like, and it's not a little thing, but the streets and the sidewalks, and making sure that it's safe, pleasant, beautiful, and feels well managed, I think, as a key component of that as well.
So I think you've hit on some really, really important components of how all of these things ultimately tie together as well, I believe, and I apologize, I can't see your name plate.
My name is George Ferry, you're great.
George, thank you.
Hi, thank you.
Speaking of perceptions, I have a couple questions regarding who created the bullet points for each of your slides, particularly the one that addresses housing.
I think it's important, no, I'm sorry, safety, it's safety.
Speaking of perception in downtown, because all of our perceptions are different, I'd like to know who's crafting these, because I think the first bullet point, improve perception of safety by partnering with service providers to address homelessness concerns and needs.
What are those concerns and needs, who defined that, who assessed that, and then who are the stakeholders that you said that you worked with to create these slides, specifically this one.
As someone who works as a social worker in communities, I just would wonder how that came up, how you're addressing that, what that really means and entails.
We talk about people's perceptions of unhoused folk and people who experience different levels of unhousedness, and we talk about, as a city, we've multiple conversations have happened about pushing people off of the square, which is why Monsignor King is now all the way off 288 in the middle of nowhere.
In district one, district two, where I live, I just wonder what that means and how you've come to that conclusion in this four bullet point safety measure.
Sure. So wherever it was possible, we utilized and combined actual comments that were coming directly from the public.
Again, wherever it was possible. Sometimes the trying to bring together thoughts that were in the same track but had slightly different things, you know, these might be an overly broad statement.
One of the things that we will also be doing is actually releasing all of the original comments, so there will be a spreadsheet that actually has all of them.
I will say that, unfortunately, some of the comments in that area that we received were, I would perceive as derogatory, so we've tried to write this statement in a way that is sensitive, but may not go far enough, especially for someone who actually knows this area really intimately.
And so, I mean, I believe that we are very open to thinking about ways that we can kind of continue to tailor that message, but even, I think, more importantly, is working with folks that have that knowledge and expertise as we are actually crafting what the strategies look like and the actions that we would take will look like.
So other than public comment, have you reached out to stakeholders for these initiatives already in the crafting of these?
We have had some conversations with some service providers regarding that, so sort of in more of an interview format, probably not extensively yet in any sort of specific area.
And, you know, the stakeholders, we've had conversations with stakeholders who are service providers in this area. We've also had conversations with folks that represent musicians. We've had conversations with folks that represent a lot of different sectors as we are starting that information gathering.
But I think we really welcome, and this is an area, especially where I think the nonprofit sector plays a really extremely important role. So I think we're very open to really having discussions and thinking about how we can craft recommendations that are workable and move in the right directions.
Yes, yes, and that is, and I have a slide in a moment that will talk a little bit about some of our next steps, but as we're identifying some of these areas that have come up as being especially important to downtown, we will be bringing together some focus groups and being able to expand upon our research in those areas.
But, as I said, I mean, I would love if you have especially specific comments we can follow up after and, you know, we would be excited to continue to tailor that in a way that really represents the goals as well as possible.
So thank you for that comment.
Is it possible to see today's vote? Yes. Thank you.
Sorry, yes, Mr. Pruitt, I, it's quite all right, called many names in my life. The, the one common thing I see here both from the community and from us this morning is that people know downtown as retail small business, everybody loves it.
Right.
It may sound counterintuitive but I'm going to flip that on this head and try to be the standard bearer for housing. As I see the future of downtown, I understand why people interpret the existing downtown is that.
But when I see growth, I see that if we grow that and depend on basically in commuting for supporting all the additional businesses, we make almost every one of the challenge points that we've heard about worse, right.
However, if we build a whole lot more housing, then traffic in transit gets easier, because you have more density that you can more effectively move people on transit, and you're not trying to in commute as many people biking pedestrian safety gets easier because you have more people walking more people biking, it just makes sense.
Safety is better you have eyes on the street, arts and entertainment and events you've got more people already they're enjoying it so you're maximizing the bang for the buck parks in public space same thing bang for the buck culture, it goes to goes without saying.
It goes without saying that, you know, I think, as you pointed out before coven.
There were many people around here not not disparaging any thoughts but who were saying we need more class a office we need more class a office. And now we're in this wonderful position where we don't have 30% of our, our building stock, just sitting there.
So let's, let's capitalize on that, make sure we're not over compensating, but also make sure that we are planning for allowing a place that the comp plan talks about live work and play.
You know, quite honestly the 900 unit assessment there is less than 5% of the growth in Denton that comp plan says we'll have in 10 years, I'd like to see that 25%.
You know I, you, you've just done a wonderful job for me of really talking about the way that these strategies are interlinked, and that the opportunities of them are that ultimately we can approach housing goals in a way that supports local development that supports
districts that supports your comment about the importance of the floodplain and and so on as well. And I think you've really kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of the way that we think about the way that these things can actually intervene with each other
in order to move towards the same strategic goals.
Sir, thank you.
This question, I'm not familiar with the square.
Some of the businesses are they open till 2am like some of the restaurants are, because I'm tying that in with the transit.
There's at least one 24 hour restaurant. Okay. Well, as far as transit goes, what are the hours of the transit, I know the buses, you know, I would go on what Councilman Byrd said, if you want to pull someone in from 35 to come into downtown.
And if I come and I know the transit ends at 11 o'clock, I'm more prone to drive a car so that would be a big safety concern. If I know I'm going to be here and I can only be here till 11 o'clock to get back home so traffic and transit, it's which one of my biggest concerns.
Thank you. Perfect. Thank you so much.
I wanted to piggyback off what Eric said and I agree and I think it's important that, for me when I saw the priorities being number one retail and commercial, I was surprised because for me I'm thinking of like in the Turz district downtown, there's so much vacant office space
that a high percentage of office space just remains vacant in our downtown district, which is an opportunity missed to get more money to then get back into the revitalization of downtown the square specific that small like four block or whatever area.
So I was just interested to see why retail and commercial is like one of the biggest priorities and another part close to that area when we have so much vacant space already waiting to be filled. And I think it plays into my actual ask which is the educational piece right so like from my own lens, I think of when I'm going to do a needs assessment in my community I want to make sure that I'm providing the education to help them answer the questions I really want data on.
Because I want to make sure that they understand when they say residential and commercial, we actually have quite a bit like right up the road from this little area that is accessible to these folks that want to open businesses.
So I just wanted to make sure that that's where we're coming from. When we're asking these questions do they have this educational knowledge to tie into it. We currently have this much open space four blocks north.
This is you know I'm saying yeah I absolutely absolutely agree and you know I will say to to the to the comments on some of the the office space and vacancies you know one of the things that we're trying to dig into is why aren't those renting what what's been the barrier to that is it about the spaces is it about the affordability for small businesses.
You know, I think one of the things and just to speak a minute to the small business opportunity, especially is that right now looking from a market perspective, it is very difficult to build new buildings that are affordable for retail and restaurant spaces.
Which means our historic building stock is a very important asset because we have places where we might be able to accommodate that. At the same time, we see opportunities and gaps in terms of the spaces are available, especially for people who want to try out new business ideas who want to new business idea, and that that's also been a barrier for folks who might not have the capital or the wealth base to be able to move into that entrepreneurship space fully.
So expanding on the types of office spaces that might be available. Sorry, not office retail spaces that might be available, thinking about the pathway from an idea to brick and mortar, you know there's a lot of steps in between there that that we can use to kind of create more opportunities, and that that may also be a place where we can continue to diversify the businesses and who they serve within downtown so there's a lot of little pieces and a lot of details that I think we're excited to get into and I also just I love your.
Point about the messaging the education and making sure that people feel that they have the data in order to make good decisions about these things and that's definitely something that will continue to work towards.
Thank you.
Mayor, you want to touch on next steps.
So, just to speak a little bit to some of the most important next steps that will be coming up. We will be recording a video of the entire case for action as well as releasing the data analysis that we have.
And we will we'll have one video that's all 50 slides that's probably an hour of me and other people talking. We will also cut them up into smaller segments so if you're really interested in the business data, you can just watch that piece or and so on and so forth so being able to actually be able to get into that,
as well as releasing the sort of documentation and all of those kind of components.
For this phase of engagement, we will also be doing additional online engagement so the same sort of questions that we've been asking will continue to get feedback on on our online portal.
We'll probably open that up in about a week and then have that open for probably around a month as we're continuing to get feedback.
And then, importantly, as you brought up George, we will be looking at focus groups on some of these key topics where we know that we need to dive deeper in order to get the information and put strategies together in a way that really impacts and affects the changes that
help us move towards this larger vision.
We were going to begin working really on the development of what are the actions so the what are we actually going to do which I know all of you are itching to find out and think about and contribute.
So the next time that we come back with you all in public those will be the conversations that we'll be having where we'll have some of these ideas that we can continue to drill down on and think about, again, what do we need to do for a second third,
how are we leveraging all of our different tools and opportunities and strategies towards those types of outcomes. So those will be some of our next steps.
And this is for the city manager. If I can get a feel for what the engagement is, how far this engagement will take us, right? So because if there's a supplement, kind of a next step that we're not contracted for, I want to have that conversation maybe sooner than later so that there's not a break.
I don't know that there will be but just want to get a feel for that. And then my challenge for you though is to make sure we're continuing.
If I'm tracking with you right, if they're really on the onset, then maybe you can put it up there for everyone. So the map that we're talking about, the area that we're talking about, right?
I would just challenge you to continue to push to have that be top of mind, right? Because you're talking about a catalyst project for that entire area and resist the battle of the square proper, right?
Whenever we're talking about square proper, it's going to be incumbent upon you to push back to say no, we need a catalyst project that's beyond these four walls.
And I will clarify, it will be multiple catalyst projects.
Agreed. But still, I just think there's this closing in between LOCUS and ELL versus the map that you've identified and the need to push back regularly so that we all are thinking of scope, size, those sort of things, proper.
I will say one of the best practices that we've seen, as I said, I was the project manager on Houston's downtown plan.
And when we were going through the process of the award for that project, one of the things that they prompted us with is that they wanted us to read the downtown plans of all of the 50 biggest cities in the country and give them a response about what were some of the best practices ideas that we got out of that.
And I think one of the things that we saw very clearly as a best practice that a lot of downtowns are pursuing is that a lot of downtowns in the early 2000s, they had a downtown plan that was about really strengthening the core.
That they really needed to come back and really make sure that the square, you know, their equivalent of the square was doing well.
The newer plans have been all about the edges and making sure that there's a great relationship between downtown and its adjacent communities that makes sure that downtown is really an integral part of the city, not a sort of island in the middle of it.
And I think that's something that we really take to heart as well. And we've heard a lot of feedback about the ways, even that some of the major streets that form our boundaries, Bell University, Carroll, have been barriers between people really using downtown as well.
And so I think there will absolutely be a focus on multiple areas in and around, a real desire to continue to expand on what's been good about the square, but make it go further and to think about the way that those edges can be more inviting and create more opportunities for the
Detonites who live around downtown to be a part of what's going on downtown as well. Thank you. So, anything else from your end before we. Okay. Okay. When scheduling the focus groups, would you please consider a variety of time.
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Also, I'm just looking at the map that you have there. I do understand that we are considering moving downtown Eastport.
And capturing some, some areas where our new updated police department is over on Hickory Street and industrial and sycamore, pulling all of that into the downtown area.
I'm not sure. We're just evaluating all of the area plans and how they work together. So it isn't necessarily that that's going to be part of downtown or it's part of Southeast or what's to the north, but we're going to evaluate.
That's where he was speaking to the fringes. What's on the fringes of downtown. What we've taken is the previous documents that we've had that have been different plans for the downtown area, and then trying to just get the general area, and then we're.
That's all that feedback. They met yesterday with, you know, the consultants from the Southeast plan, and then really looking at how those two are connected and what what's works, what would work best. So, nothing's been determined.
Okay, well, you know, just put this out here on the table and lay it down there that I know that those community members over in that area are very concerned when you're speaking to the director of the funeral home, because he knows everybody and everything that his perception is that, you know, parts of their community is going to be pulled into downtown.
That is very worrisome. So you all please keep that in mind.
And for us as staff, we look at this. This is Denton. Sure. So we're just managing really all of the interests and the interest of what different groups there may be, and what makes the most sense. So we absolutely aren't saying this is downtown.
This is Southeast. This is Northeast. It is just we've got several area plans. How does this fit Denton and what's best for the long haul.
That's my job. Yes, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Ma'am. Quick question. Just congrats. I know how hard it is to do public engagement, but I did have, I'll keep my thoughts on that action item for later, but as we finish the last bit of engagement, a couple of questions I had is I saw you guys at parking day, and I agree with sentiments, but instead of just the total bulk quantity of comments we got, I'm assuming we don't have any demographic info from people.
That's true. Do we have any indication of how these comments were dispersed between the events? Between the different events. We absolutely do. Yes, and it's a very specific group. It's a very different, yes. Yep, absolutely.
And then with that, kind of a follow up is, did we offer any, you know, even if you're at an event, you have leisure time, you're there, you already care about the square, you want to be at an event.
Do we, to engage, disengage, as you mentioned, did we offer any incentives to people to give feedback? Not per se, no. I don't know if that's something we could consider, but, you know, when you're...
I guess I will say it may be a possibility in some of the focus groups especially, depending on what those topics end up being.
I don't know, I think that's something to consider. To the extent possible, we did also try to choose different events that, as you said, Parking Day is one that those folks around the square all the time, they're within a certain demographic, and they have a certain perspective.
We also tried to go to some events that people who don't usually come downtown would be at, so that we would have an opportunity to talk with them. And I think we're going to continue looking for opportunities to continue to find different types of events where different types of folks will be gathering, both downtown and probably also spreading out a little bit outside of downtown in order to make sure that we're continuing to get feedback from a variety of different people about a variety of different needs.
And the last part on the feedback that I had is, I think it's totally understandable that people have safety concerns, and I think I have some of those comments as well, but with thinking of echoing George's point, with our homeless members, if they're very downtown, they're in our community, did we get their feedback to kind of counter, maybe to get both sides of the perspective, did we have any feedback from hospital folks?
You know, we did definitely have some conversations with folks during some of those events, and then we've had conversations with some of the service providers, which I know don't necessarily represent everybody within that.
So we've tried to get a variety of perspectives from folks that are working with unhoused individuals as well as folks that were willing to talk to us during some of those events as well.
I will also just, for your interest, we will be releasing all of the raw data, and it will be broken down by the different events and all of those sort of, so there's a lot of different ways that you can sort that and look at all of the different data that we got in those different methods.
Mr. Mayor, I'm looking to you.
Yeah, if all hearts and minds are clear.
Let me just say a comment.
Okay, byron.
Scott, can I have one?
Sorry.
I know that's okay.
Is there anybody else in queue so that we know?
Thank you.
I just wanted to compliment you all, actually, and Sean and Cameron, because I personally think you all have done an excellent job of engaging with various parts of the community at all kinds of events.
Sean and Cameron have been extremely enthusiastic out there in trying to get people's opinions.
And I think you can tell just from even this meeting, seeing the priorities that you've listed are a good list.
If you look, this is a very diverse group here.
There's a lot of us who are downtown all the time.
There are people who don't go downtown or know anything about it at all.
And yet we are still in a consensus with these priorities, maybe not in ordering them, and maybe that's not even where we should focus on ordering them per se, because as Eric presented so eloquently and Councilman Holland brought it up to, you know, these things work together.
So you fix certain things, the other things will come.
And so all of this is a collective group of things.
They're all priorities, and you've done a great job of coming up with the priorities.
Now the thing is the action.
How do we make this plan happen?
How do we get the housing done?
How do we bring in more people?
How do we fix the streets?
All of that is part of the whole action plan, which comes next.
But I think this first round of data, I think you've done an excellent, excellent job.
Thank you.
We really appreciate that.
We especially appreciate again Sean and Cameron, you guys have a great team working with us here.
I will say that, yes, there's a storytelling aspect to what we do and being able to pull these things together and put them in a way that starts to make sense, but this is about the wisdom of the community to be able to bring these things forward.
And again, in a way that we've seen much more consensus than we've seen areas that were divided on it, and I think that's extremely, extremely exciting.
Okay.
Another opportunity for community engagement coming up January 24th to 28th.
That is the Denton Black Film Festival.
Yes.
We would love to have you out.
We just had a conversation about that, and I think we would love to do that.
Thank you.
Well, anyone else?
Great.
Well, I'll echo those sentiments, thank you very much, appreciate your presentation today.
A lot of information covered quickly, succinctly, great feedback, so look forward to next steps, that sort of thing.
Oh, okay.
So, with that, I'll let the other boards close and then I'll close.
Sure, it's interesting.
So it's 1224, and with that, I will end the parks portion of this meeting.
And I will adjourn the GNC at this joint meeting at 1224 p.m.
Okay.
And at that same time, we'll conclude the council's portion of the meeting, and we will reconvene at 3 o'clock at City Hall.
Thank you so much.