>> Good afternoon and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission
meeting for Wednesday, December 13, 2023.
This is our work session and with the quorum present I will call us to order at 5.07 p.m.
Let the record show that Commissioners McDade and Cole are absent this evening.
First item on our work session is citizen comment on consent agenda.
Anyone here for that?
We will move on to clarification of tonight's agenda.
First item is minutes for the 15th.
Anybody have any issues, questions for that?
Our consent agenda, any questions on that?
>> Just a minor thing on item D on the consent agenda.
>> You were.
>> I noticed that there's some illegible wording.
>> That was my next thing that I was going to say.
I actually saw that earlier and had a discussion.
What we're going to do is clarify that verbally that what we are considering there is a final
plat not a preliminary plat.
Legal is good with verbally doing that.
So the motion, if we could have the -- we're approving the consent agenda, clarifying that
that item is a final plat.
Understood?
Yeah.
Okay.
Great.
Moving on to items for individual consideration.
For A, being a minor plat, they had asked for an extension and staff can do that themselves.
So we will not be needing to take any action on that tonight.
For B, I will -- is Mia here?
Yeah.
I'll let Mia come up and give a little synopsis of that.
>> Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, associate planner.
This is for B. FP23-0033 is a final plat for Hickory -- where is it?
Hickory Grove, phase 1B, formally known as Legends Ranch.
This site is located just north of West University and west of Thomas J. Egan Road.
At this time, they are not meeting our criteria for approval, so we are recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to the requested extension that could be granted until a date
certain of January 10th, 2024.
With that, I'll take any questions.
Great.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Thank you, Chair.
Just really quick, are they all first extension requests unless otherwise noted?
Correct.
Perfect.
Thank you.
We can do that.
Okay.
Anything else from you?
Okay.
Thank you.
Oh, you have the next one anyway, but I'll let you stay up there for 4C.
This final plat is a final plat for Club Car Wash Denton, located at the southwest corner
of the intersection of East University Drive and Mockingbird Lane.
Similarly, this project or this final plat is not meeting all of our criteria for approval
as provided for you in your backup.
So staff is recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to their requested extension, which could be granted to a date
certain of January 10th, 2024.
With that, I'll take any questions.
Thank you.
Questions?
No.
Okay.
Thank you, Mia.
Okay.
Next we have 4D, FR230016.
Erin's making her way up for that one.
Yes.
Hi.
Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Erin Stanley, Assistant Planner.
This is a final replat of the Beoway addition for two lots.
This is generally located at Beoway and Abram Avenue, generally south of Loop 288.
At this time, they are not meeting our criteria for approval, but staff has no objection to
the extension, which could be granted to a date certain of January 10th, 2024.
Questions for Erin?
Thank you.
Okay, next we've got 4E, FP230030, Sean's item today.
Hello.
Good evening, Chair and members of the commission, and we'll make sure we got that one here.
Yes.
All right.
Yeah, so this is a requested final plat for the 100-loop North Loop 288 addition, a multiple
lot commercial addition.
I did want to address your question earlier.
This is a repeated extension request, and it specifically due not to any intransigence
on the part of the developers, but simply because there are multiple owners and they've
had some back and forth about who wants which easement where, so we expect they'll have
that resolved.
That's taking some time, but again, they've been more than responsive to our concerns.
They're just having to work some things out internally and we're comfortable.
We do not object to their request for an additional extension.
Great.
Questions?
Okay.
Thanks, Sean.
Last item under individual consideration is 4F, FR230018.
Hello, Julie.
Hello.
Good evening, Julie Wyatt.
This is FR23-0018.
You're probably familiar with this project.
It is the Agave Ranch project.
It is for a little portion of that development.
They are proposing to replat an area into residential lots.
They do have some items that they need to correct, and so we have no objection to their
requested extension.
It should say January 10th, not 9th.
It's my night for typos, but so anyway, yes, I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thanks, Julie.
Questions?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay.
And I think you're staying right up here anyway, because we're going to see if we've got some
questions on our public hearing for tonight, 5A, PDA 230001.
You want to give us the summary on that?
All right.
So this --
Sorry.
I'm going to recuse myself from this.
I'm a member of St. Mark's Parish.
Is that the correct one?
That is.
I've been a 20-year member of the parish, and I'm a patron, so I'm going to step outside.
Okay.
Very good.
I think we're -- when we are finished, thank you.
All right.
So this is regarding an amendment to a development plan for Plan Development 174.
The property is located on the north side of Crawford between John Payne and 35W, so
it's situated on the west side of town, kind of on the southwest side of town, actually.
It's right there on the boundary between Denton and the town of Argyle.
They are proposing to amend their detail plan that was approved in 2012.
The PD was established in 1999, and this is a detail plan that was approved in 2012.
They would like to add 400 additional seats to the sanctuary.
The original PD contemplated 1,400 seats, so they'd like to move that to 1,800.
Add 136 additional parking spaces.
The original PD had 380, 2,000-square-foot covered entrances.
Those wouldn't increase the size of the air-conditioned part of the building, really just allow people
to exit their cars.
And then realign that west driveway, so really everything you're seeing in purple here.
The Denton 2040 plan designates the area as low density.
It is consistent with the comprehensive plan.
And so staff has analyzed the proposal and determined it complies with the criteria for
approval.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
The applicant will also be here with their team tonight to answer any questions as well.
Great.
Thanks, Julie.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you, Chair.
Julie, if this was a brand new site, building the church from scratch, would that development
require a TIA?
Yes, due to the number of trips they generated.
Because we're adding a new access piece there, is there any TIA piece that-- if you're creating
a new access into on and off, you can't imagine that everyone goes out that one single access.
But what's the rules around that for access?
So we actually did require a TIA.
Because of the time that had passed since the original project was approved, because
of the increase in number of seats, we did require a TIA.
And so that was reviewed and approved by our engineering staff.
A word of caution, that driveway to the west actually was part of that original 2012 approval.
What they're proposing is just to shift it actually to the north, about 120, 130 feet,
depending on how I measure on any given day.
So the original driveway aligned mid-block here, they're proposing to align it with that
street so that they have an intersection there.
So they did-- engineering did review that TIA.
And they do have a couple of suggestions regarding that.
One would be a right turn lane here on Crawford to go into that main access point.
Crawford's an interesting road in that, as you can see, that this is on the edge of Argyle.
So Argyle actually owns the majority of Crawford Road.
There is a sliver that's within the city of Denton.
I think there's also some slivers that are within the county.
But any improvements to Crawford Road will have to go through Argyle to ensure that it
meets their standards and make sure that that is something that they would approve.
So really, that's what that TIA yielded.
Carnegie Ridge would be classified as a collector?
It is not.
It functions as a collector, and that's something that we talked about with our transportation
group.
But as it was planned and constructed, it is a neighborhood street.
Gotcha.
There's no traffic mitigation that we can do within there.
So if you're coming out of there based on that site location, you're going to need to
turn left.
You're not going to want to turn right into the neighborhood.
For traffic's sake, you're going to want to go left to get to Crawford.
So there's no traffic mitigation we can do on that.
Well the applicant will be here along with their engineering group that reviewed it,
and they might be able to speak to how the site functions.
We anticipate, or the TIA indicates, that the majority going out of that driveway would
head to the south toward Crawford Road and then points beyond.
So it is anticipated that those who use that driveway, the majority at least, would go
toward the south.
Can you point out, I couldn't tell when I was looking at the site map, can you point
out other connectivity around the parking lot?
So that parking lot that's on the northwest side of that property, there is the speckled
pieces there.
That does connect all the way around to the front side, to those parking lots on the south
side of the building, or no?
Let me get a better map.
I think this one's a little bit better.
So this shows what's kind of constructed out there now.
That parking lot was always conceived to be that loop.
As they phased their project, it really kind of stops right here and right here right now,
but that loop will continue on to the north so that it connects all the way through.
Right now, the existing driveways are the one to Meandering Creek to the north, and
then to the south to Crawford, and then that third driveway would be in this location.
The one that was approved in 2012 would connect here.
What they're proposing is to connect to the north.
Got it.
Thank you.
You bet.
Other questions?
Tina, yes?
I know Julie alluded to this just a moment earlier, but this graphic is a great depicter
of the streets within the area.
So we've talked in the past about how traffic is like water, right?
It follows the path of least resistance.
So absent the drive connection to Carnegie Ridge, one of our concerns is that patrons
leaving the site would, and yeah, Julie, if you can help me out, if they were, they could
leave that north entrance that's already existing, and they can take, I believe it's called Meandering
Creek to the top, and then come down to Carnegie Ridge.
So folks that are trying to avoid potentially having to interact with Crawford at their
main entrance, especially if they are trying to get back towards the west, towards I-35W,
that a path of least resistance is going to be to go to the north, go through the residential
street, because it's going to get me back to Carnegie Ridge, right?
And then it allows me to go south.
So if we're trying to minimize that from incurring, one of our concerns is that would be the unintended
consequence of not having the drive connection directly out to Carnegie.
That makes sense.
Commissioner Smith?
I think the other part behind that then, Tina, just to know is that, I mean, if you're turning
down Meandering Creek coming down from John Page, you can even say, well, I'm not coming
down to Crawford, but if I don't want to interact with traffic going in on that one entrance
on Crawford there, that I can go up John Page and then turn down Meandering Creek and go
then down the backside of Carnegie Ridge and then get into that back parking lot.
That otherwise, you know, there's traffic in and out there in between services.
It kind of it does it does create a feels like no matter what we do, which I get it.
They need more parking.
They got space for parking.
It's a church.
It's supposed to be a residential.
It just makes sense to me.
But I feel like there's no real good way to slice the pie without directing traffic through
residential areas.
And it gets a little funky.
So but yeah, I don't feel anything the inside on that other than just like it's it's there.
So maybe I'm crazy and thinking that someone's got a willing to be go around three sides
of church to get to the same parking lot.
I mean, I think it would.
I think.
Sorry.
Yeah.
I think it's probably more of an issue leaving than necessarily coming.
But it's I absolutely agree with you.
It seems a problem.
Either way.
Obviously, when this was approved, all of these houses were not here.
Yeah, so this drive to the west is I mean, it's it's in the plan as we currently know
it.
So aligning it.
So this might show show that and this is my drawing skills.
So forgive me.
But this is kind of ghosted in about that location where that existing drive.
This is what they're proposing now here in purple.
So we think it's better to align with that street, because why we do have our traffic
engineer here who could probably also speak to that in a much more technical way.
In terms of the applicant, what they have expressed is aligning toward the north to
add that additional curve for the driveway does give a little more storage on site so
that more cars could remain on site, 14 cars as opposed to nine cars.
I would say and Chandra might say, and I correct me, but generally, we like those intersections
to align it.
It just reduces those conflict points and makes for a less less complexity in that area.
I mean, I see that being complex, regardless, at mass.
You know, I do remember when St. Mark's Church was in my neighborhood and the way that it
backed up on Pennsylvania Drive, it was significant.
So and this is a lovely campus, it's a lovely parish, but it is that's going to be a problem.
And I'm trying to understand if aligning it is actually better or worse for the neighborhood.
There was some thought, not thought, some questions with regard to citizens who responded
with regard to another access point onto Crawford.
Is that a possibility or are we just too close to that roundabout to have that happen?
I mean, did anyone think about that or discuss that?
I can try to answer, but if once again, jump up.
I checked with engineering, I believe it meets those minimum separation, but I think the
concern was that it would not disperse the traffic adequately, that having those three
driveways in those different directions would disperse the traffic and maybe not put it
all in one pinch point.
Do we think I captured it there?
Okay.
Tina, did you want to add anything to that?
No.
And I was just saying, Shawna gave you a thumbs up.
Okay.
Anybody else?
Commissioner Perot, do you have a question?
Yeah.
Thank you, Chair.
I'll leave my other comments for the public hearing, but just procedurally, since we don't
have a full compliment, can you remind us what is considered a approval and denial based
on how that works out?
Oh, with having four people?
Yeah.
That's what I'm going to say.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, yeah, majority.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And I guess if it-
Yeah.
That's very true.
And I guess-
I'm sorry.
And obviously, Ty would put us at the next meeting because we do have two commissioners
here, because of other issues, they'll be here at the next meeting.
Any other questions at this time?
I feel like I had one that I lost that I wanted to ask, and let's see, I asked about Crawford,
asked about that alignment.
I guess if I'll just have to ask it at the public meeting.
Okay.
That's fine.
We'll get back to it then.
Thank you very much, Julie.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
And we're going to ask Commissioner Thager to join us again.
Okay.
It is 5.26 PM, and at this time, the Planning and Zoning Commission will convene in a closed
meeting to deliberate the closed meeting item that is on our agenda, which is IDPZ23-238,
consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071.
We will reconvene in council chambers at 630.
We will now go into closed session.
Good evening.
Thank you for your patience.
The Planning and Zoning Commission has now reconvened from closed session at 639 PM.
No official action was taken in that closed session.
So I'll welcome you to our regular meeting for Wednesday, December 13th, 2023.
With a quorum present, I will call us to order at 639 PM.
I'll let the record show that Commissioner Cole and Commissioner McDade are absent from
tonight's meeting.
And I did want to welcome our new Commissioner Kimberly Thager to the dais.
First item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. and Texas Flags.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for
which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
On the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.
Thank you.
I just wanted to note that we will be hand voting.
We've got a little bit of a problem on our screens today.
So we'll be hand voting by roll call this evening.
First item on our agenda is consider approval of our minutes from the November 15th meeting.
Commissioner Villarreal.
I move approval.
Commissioner Smith.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard.
Aye.
And chair is also an aye.
That motion carries five zero.
That will take us to our consent agenda for this evening.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve.
We talked about clarification at work session.
That's B, correct?
It is D.
Thank you.
The vote for approval for consent agenda sans agenda item D.
Well, we're not going to remove it per legal.
We're just going to clarify the agenda title.
It's a closed item.
It is a preliminary plaque, correct?
Correct.
It is.
But it's supposed to be a final plaque.
It's supposed to be a final plaque.
You're right.
Okay.
We got it, eventually.
Okay.
I believe we have a motion for approval of the consent agenda correcting item 3D to read
that it is a final plaque that we are taking action on.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second to approve the consent agenda clarifying item 3D that
we are voting there on a final plaque.
Any questions?
Okay.
Go ahead and vote.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries five zero.
That will take us to our items for individual consideration.
First being 4A on the agenda which is MP230023.
That is a minor plaque and the applicant had asked for an extension which staff by our
rules can grant.
So we will not be taking action.
No action by us is needed on 4A.
So that will move us to 4B which is FP230033 and Mia is here for presentation.
Good evening.
It doesn't seem there better.
Test, test, test.
Yep.
There we go.
Thank you.
Okay.
This item FP23-Mia Hines, Associate Planner, this item FP230033 is a final plaque for Hickory
Grove Phase 1B, formerly known as Legends Ranch.
At this time the site is located just north of University and west of Thomas J. Egan Road.
At this time it does not meet all of our criteria for approval so staff is recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to their requested extension which could be granted to a date
certain of January 10th, 2024.
With that I will take any questions that you have.
Thank you, Mia.
Any questions for Mia?
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve the extension of date certain of January 10th, 2024.
Okay.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Second.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of January
10th, 2024.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote please.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries 5-0.
That will take us to 4C FP23-0034.
Mia is here again for presentation.
Good evening again, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, Associate Planner.
This item is the final plat for the Club Car Wash East located at the southwest corner of
East University Drive and Mockingbird Lane.
Similarly, at this time the plat does not meet all of staff's criteria for approval
so we are recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to the requested extension which should be granted to a date
certain of January 10th, 2024.
With that, I will take any questions or comments that you have.
Thank you, Mia.
Questions?
Okay.
I do not see any.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Move approval of the extension request to a date certain of January 10th, 2024.
Commissioner Smith.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of January
10th, 2024.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote by roll call.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That will carry 5-0.
That will take us to 4-D, FR2-30016.
Erin is here for presentation.
Yes.
Hello.
Good evening, Chair and members of the commission, Erin Stanley, Assistant Planner.
This is FR23-0016.
This is a final replat of Beale Way addition.
It's located at Beale Street and Abram Avenue, south of Loop 288.
At this time, the plat does not meet our conditions for approval, but we have no objection to
the requested extension to the date certain of January 10th, 2024.
Thank you, Erin.
Any questions?
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve the extension request to date certain of January 10th, 2024.
Thank you.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of January
10th, 2024.
Discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Aye.
Commissioner Smith.
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard.
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
5-0.
That's how that motion carries.
That will take us to 4-E, FP2-30030.
Hello, Sean.
Good evening, Chair.
And members of the Commission, Sean Jacobson, Associate Planner, here to present FR23-0030A,
which is a final plat for the 100 North Loop 288 addition.
This is a multi-lot commercial addition at the intersection of McKinney and Loop 288.
At this time, their plat does not meet all of our requirements for approval.
Staff is recommending denial, but does not object to their request extension, which could
be to a date certain of January 10th, 2024.
I can answer any questions.
Thank you, Sean.
Questions for Sean?
Okay.
Thanks.
Do you have a question for Sean, Commissioner Smith?
Okay.
Thank you very much.
So, Commissioner Smith.
Make a motion to approve the extension request to date certain of January 10th, 2024.
Okay.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Oh.
Go ahead.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of January
10th, 2024.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Pruitt?
Aye.
Commissioner Smith?
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard?
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries 5-0.
That will take us to 4-F, FR2-30018.
Julie is here for presentation.
Hi, Julie.
Hello.
Julie Wyatt, principal planner, and this is FR23-0018.
This is a residential replat for a common area lot in the Agave Ranch subdivision you're
probably all familiar with.
It is situated on the northeast side of town, just off of Sherman Drive.
There are some things that they do need to correct in order for it to meet the minimum
requirements for platting, so staff is recommending denial.
However, we have no objection to an extension to a date certain of January 10th, and I will
be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Julie.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
I make a motion to approve.
Commissioner Thaggard, thank you.
We've got a motion to approve the extension request to a date certain of January 10th,
2024.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of January
10th, 2024.
Discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote.
Commissioner Pruitt?
Second.
Commissioner Smith?
Aye.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Aye.
Commissioner Thaggard?
Aye.
Chair is also an aye.
That motion carries 5-0.
That will take us to our public hearing item for the evening.
That is 5A PDA 230001.
Commissioner Thaggard will be recusing herself, so I'll give her a few minutes.
I will go ahead and open the public hearing and invite Julie up for presentation of this
item.
Good evening.
Here we go.
Good evening.
I'm Julie Wyatt, principal planner, and this is PDA 230001, St. Mark's.
So a little bit of PD history before we get into the request tonight.
This is the subject property, which is 28 acres.
It's located on the north side of Crawford Road between John Payne Road and I-35W.
It's a part of PD 174, and it was established in 1999.
The original PD intended a school site for this subject property, along with some residential
lots.
In 2012, the property owner came forward with a PD amendment to approve the current use
on the property, which is that church use, the religious facility use.
And also as part of that, there was a detail plan approved by council, and that detail
plan is shown on your screen right here.
And it included six buildings, and that includes buildings that have already been constructed.
So we've got the administration building has been constructed, along with the religious
education building, a maintenance building.
There are a couple of other buildings that have not been constructed, the rectory on
the west side of the property.
There's also a youth building.
So those are intended to be phased in.
That original plan also included a looped driveway, which is shown in yellow on your
screen.
A lot of that has already been constructed.
There is a little portion that hasn't been constructed on the north side, and that's
where that hatch mark is.
There's also some construction going on on the property right now.
The PD allowed for a sanctuary to be constructed to accommodate 1,400 seats.
And so that is currently under construction.
As part of that, or in order to serve that, the PD included 380 parking spaces, three
driveway connections, and also a detention area and some conceptual architecture.
I've got a picture on your screen that shows kind of what that conceptual architecture
was intended to look like and how it's been constructed.
Those three driveways, one was to the south connecting directly to Crawford Road.
There was also a driveway connecting to Meandering Creek to the north, and then finally a driveway
to the west connecting to a future roadway, which is now Carnegie Ridge.
Two of those driveways have been constructed, the one to the north and one to the south.
The one to the west is actually a subject of what we're going to be talking about tonight
that has not been constructed.
Just to talk a little bit about the area roadways, John Payne is to the east of the subject property.
That's a secondary arterial.
That connects to Crawford Road with a roundabout that is actually within the city of Argyle.
And then Crawford Road is also an arterial, generally a secondary arterial within the
town of Argyle, and that runs along the south of the property.
So what are they proposing?
They are proposing to modify that approved development plan to add an additional 1,400
seats within the sanctuary.
So increasing the number of seats in the sanctuary from 1,400 to 1,800, it wouldn't require that
the sanctuary be made any larger.
It really just would be how they would configure the inside.
To accommodate those additional 4,000 seats, they are proposing 136 additional parking
spaces, 2,000 square foot covered entrances just to cover that drop-off area, and then
also proposing to realign that west driveway.
I want to take just a little time to talk about that west driveway.
So those areas of change are shaded in purple on your screen.
The original driveway location is ghosted in about here.
I drew that in, so it's not perfect, but it's generally in that area.
And that driveway was originally intended to connect to that roadway mid-block between
two residential streets.
They are proposing to shift that to the north about 120, 130 feet in order to align with
an existing residential street.
It would allow them to add a little more storage on site to allow more cars queuing from about
9 to about 14.
There are impacts that we always look at when we talk about these and when we analyze these
projects.
So first of all, in looking at what they're proposing, it wouldn't introduce any new uses
on the site.
It would just be a continuation of that existing use, and it would not increase that square
footage of that sanctuary.
It would increase the on-site parking intended to minimize overflow in the neighborhood,
so that they can accommodate those cars on their site.
But we do understand that with those increased seats that there are traffic impacts.
So they were required to submit a traffic impact analysis.
It has been reviewed by city staff, our engineering and transportation folks.
I'm going to do my best to explain this, but I am not an expert in transportation.
So we do have some members of our transportation team here if there's any really technical
questions.
So in looking at the traffic impact analysis, their use is a little different.
We're usually looking at peak impacts Monday through Friday, that morning hour and that
evening hour.
But because of the way their use functions, really their peak time is Sundays.
And so their TIA not only included just those weekday peak trips and 24-hour trips, it also
included Sundays.
And so what you've got on your screen is a quick table looking at what the trips that
would be generated with the approved 1,400 seats versus the requested -- and then adding
those requested 400 seats.
So under the approved plan, it would generate on Sundays about 3,000 trips.
The additional 400 seats would generate about 884 trips, and that's on Sunday.
Weekday is quite a bit less with 1,200 for the 1,400 -- 1,200 trips for the 1,400 seats
and then 360 for the 400 seats.
As I mentioned, Crawford Road is primarily within the town of Argyle.
I believe there are some slivers that are within the city of Denton.
But it's primarily operated, maintained, and owned by Argyle.
It was reconstructed in 2021 and currently has those two travel lanes, both east and
west.
They also have left-turn lanes at intersections, and there's a left-turn lane at the subject
property entrance as well as on Carnegie Ridge.
Currently the TIA estimates that there are about 5,600 trips, probably closer to 6,000
-- or 5,700 trips on Crawford Road now.
But it isn't expected to increase.
There's a lot of growth in this area, a lot of development, not only within the PD and
the residential growth with that to the north, but also to the west across 35.
So there are -- those trips are expected to increase.
So based upon those impacts, those Sunday morning impacts, there were some TIA recommendations.
Before I talk about those, I want to talk quickly about the level of service.
So as I mentioned, there's those three driveways, and those kind of all lead toward Crawford,
right?
They all go south.
So we've got Meandering Creek, which goes out to John Payne and then intersects with
the roundabout.
We have the church, the main driveway, and then we have the Carnegie Ridge intersection.
So they did an analysis not only of what's existing, but also what is projected out.
And when they project it out to 2029, and that's that current background traffic with
the growth and with the additional seating in the church, they do anticipate that on
Sunday mornings, that Carnegie Ridge connection to Crawford would be a level of service of
C, and that's about a 15 to 25 second delay at that intersection.
That main driveway would be a level of service F, and that's about a 56 to 128 second delay.
And then a level at that roundabout as well.
So in order to accommodate the traffic and mitigate those impacts, the TIA does recommend
a westbound right turn lane on Crawford Road, so kind of in this area right here, to allow
cars to get out of the flow of traffic and make that right-hand turn in the development.
They also propose an off-duty law enforcement officer to direct that traffic.
It is a recommendation.
That turn lane, because that property, that road is in Argyle, that's something that they
would have to coordinate with Argyle.
Of course, we would be in the mix.
We want to make sure that we're all coordinating, but that would have to be designed and approved
through Argyle.
And then that off-duty enforcement officer, that would be something that would be a little
bit challenging to enforce as part of zoning, because zoning, we often think about what's
physically on the site.
It's more of an operational characteristic, but it is something that the TIA does recommend.
Public outreach westbound.
I know you got, I believe, an email from me today.
We thus far have received 20 letters in opposition.
Six of those are within 200 feet of the request, and that's where that supermajority requirement
could kick in.
Right now, it's at about 1.66%, getting close to 2%.
We've received three letters in favor.
This one is a little different.
This is my first case that's had an online petition.
So we did hear from the community that there was a change.org petition that was launched
about a week ago, I think, a couple weeks ago, and they do have 137 signatures on that.
So I just wanted to let you all know that.
It's also in your backup as well.
The applicant had two neighborhood meetings.
They had one in January, nobody attended.
They did have one on Monday that I believe about 11 members of the community came.
They did, their primary concerns were that driveway connection to Carnegie Ridge and
just traffic overall.
So based upon the criteria for approval, staff does recommend approval of the request.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
The applicant is also here.
I don't believe they have a presentation, but they'd like to come up and just speak
briefly.
>> Any questions right now for Julie?
Commissioner Smith?
>> Thank you, Chair.
Julie, just to make sure I'm clear, the existing PD that was approved in 2012 has that driveway
on the west that we've already seen that has a capacity of about nine cars.
So technically you could say that right now the applicant could build by right that driveway
there right now with no changes whatsoever to the PDA, with no approval of this PDA,
for example.
>> Correct.
>> So okay, understood.
Thank you.
>> Sure.
Commissioner Pruitt?
>> Thank you, Chair.
Just about that drive, can you clarify for us in our current code, right, for a non-PD
application, don't we require those drives to align with adjacent intersections, is that
correct?
>> I'm going to ask transportation to come up and answer that for me.
You got too technical for me.
>> Sorry.
>> Good evening, Chair and commissioners, Chandra Muruganandam, traffic engineer.
>> Did you hear the question?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> For connectivity and safe operations, it is suggested and encouraged to have connectivity
with the existing intersection rather than adding another leg, where the drivers encounter
the driver expectancy is to have a four-legged intersection, having multiple three-legged
or multiple connections would cause driver confusion, so it is to have minimal connections.
So it is recommended, but it's not uncommon to have separate intersections.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Sure.
>> Thank you.
>> Any other questions at this time for Julie?
Okay.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
So this is a public hearing.
I do have several cards in front of me.
The first being from the applicant, Rich Olson.
Hello, there.
>> Hello, there.
Members of the Planning Commission, my name is Richard Olson.
I live at 10412 Cascade here in the City of Denton.
I'm a member of St. Mark's Building Committee, and I'm here to represent the applicant on
this particular matter before you.
This project has been a team effort.
I may be the mouthpiece of the organization, but we do have individuals in the crowd that
can answer any of your technical questions.
We do have our traffic engineer, Jason Williamson and Justin Wells from Donoway.
We do have our architect and civil engineer, Darryl Vickers.
We have Kevin Imming, who is with LEMBREC, our construction manager, and most importantly,
we do have our director of construction facilities for the Diocese of Fort Worth and Tom Ross.
The City of Denton staff has provided the Planning Commission a very detailed report
concerning what is occurring there, and St. Mark's would like to concur with that recommendation.
We are asking for a favorable recommendation to the City Council.
The major amendments, as Julie has already mentioned, included 400 additional seats.
The reason for the additional seats is our church is a growing church, and unfortunately,
we don't have a lot of priests around, so we have to stack them all in one area for
that reason.
139, 136 additional parking spots really is for the additional 400 seats.
The 2000 square foot portables that will be built sometime in the future, right now, we
really can't afford to put those in right now, but they are planned for in the future.
And of course, the realignment of the entrance on to Carnegie Ridge allows us to stack traffic
internally, plus your traffic engineer basically just alluded to the geometry of the intersections
a lot better if you do not have a mid-block intersection and stuff.
Julie had mentioned we had two outreach meetings, one in January and one on December 11th.
We did have roughly 11, 12 people from the neighborhood.
We understand and we appreciate the neighborhood's concerns on this particular matter.
We have developed an internal traffic plan, but if you have ever been involved in one
of those, until you actually build it, you have to tweak it, you know, looking at different
entrance way, how you should send some traffic and how you should send other traffic.
We are committed to having off-duty police officers there, especially at Crawford Road.
Maybe even that Carnegie Ridge, that's something that will have to be evaluated in the near
future.
But we're asking for your support on this particular project and I'll be happy to answer
any questions if it's appropriate at this time.
Appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
Any questions right now?
Do you know if currently there's an officer that is used?
No, we do not presently use an officer.
Right now we have a number of different masses, and let me just give you the existing accounts.
At our 5 o'clock Saturday mass, we have 400 people attend.
We have a 7 o'clock, we have about 200, that's our Hispanic mass.
We have a 7 a.m. meeting Sunday, we have about 200, 930 and excuse me, 9, 11, 30 are our
major masses, that's because that's where most of our youth are involved.
And they have about 600 to 650 people attend those.
Then we have a 2 o'clock mass that has about 200 people.
Then we have our life team mass at four, which has about 400 to 500 people.
So we have done, we have a lot of masses for our church to help spread the traffic out.
So earlier you said that you'd be open to having an officer, but what would trigger
that in your opinion?
Our parishioners will get upset if they have to wait too long at Crawford and they'll let
you know.
I see.
Yeah, it's just one of those issues.
As with most churches, people gradually come, but they all want to leave at the same time.
So that's the issue is more when they leave the church, not when they come to the church.
And that's when that officer most likely would have been on duty.
We do have a little jurisdictional issue because the road is technically owned by Argyle/City
of Denton.
Right now there's some paperwork that needs to be done on that.
But we realize that most likely we do not want to hinder our parishioners and we would
like to get them out of the church as quickly as possible.
Gotcha.
Understood.
Any other questions of the applicant at this time?
Okay.
We may call you back up.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I do have a card from Mr. Ross.
Did you want to speak?
No.
With him I'm the director of construction facilities for the diocese.
Okay.
He does not wish to speak, but obviously is in favor of the request.
And the next card I have is from Father George.
Father George is in support.
Does not wish to speak.
Okay.
The next card I have is -- don't know if I'll get this last name right.
It's Joseph.
It starts with a D, I think.
I'm having a little hard time reading it.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Come on up and state your name correctly in your time.
My name is Joe Dracobly and I live on Cedars Court and I'm also a parishioner of St. Mark.
I would like to thank the Planning and Zoning Commission for their work in evaluating this
amendment and the opportunity for public comment.
I would also like to thank all of my neighbors, especially those who are here tonight, for
their thoughtful consideration of the amendment and their comments about the amendment.
Although I share my neighbor's concern for the safety of everyone in the neighborhood,
as noted in the exceptional report from the city staff, the amendment represents a substantial
reduction in risk and increase in safety for the neighborhood.
Additionally, Father George and the St. Mark Building Committee have sought to address
any and all concerns brought to their attention, and for these reasons, I fully and strongly
support the amendment.
St. Mark is an important part of the community and has opened up their facilities to the
neighborhood, including for conducting HOA meetings and inviting residents to parish
events.
I think the staff report very nicely represents how the repositioned driveway and increased
parking are, for a variety of reasons, of benefit to the neighborhood and help reduce
neighborhood impact of the increased attendance at St. Mark's.
I would like to briefly highlight three important additional considerations.
First, the addition of seats within the new sanctuary and the covered entrances have benefits
with no discernible impact on the safety of the neighborhood.
The increased seating allows a greater number of parishioners to worship together in the
same building rather than being seated in multiple buildings.
Second, the interways further enhance the aesthetics of St. Mark.
They continue the attractive, unified look of St. Mark, which positively supports the
property values of homes in the neighborhood.
Second, the movement of the third driveway to intersect with Cedarhurst Court reduces
the impact on residents of the neighborhood.
No houses currently face Carnegie Ridge and no cars regularly park on Carnegie Ridge.
When walking on the Carnegie Ridge sidewalks, the two streets on which one must look both
ways, Meandering Creek and, should the amendment be approved, Cedarhurst Court, would be close
together and furthest from the park, reducing the conflict point and allowing for more vehicles
in the driveway, further reducing impact on the neighborhood.
Additionally, this driveway will keep more cars off Meandering Creek, the neighborhood
street with dozens of houses that face the street.
On bike rides with my children and neighbors in the community, I regularly see children
playing on Meandering Creek, something I have not observed on Carnegie Ridge.
Even for brief periods around masses and events at St. Mark, the addition of cars on Meandering
Creek would present substantially more risk than those same vehicles on Carnegie Ridge.
The slow moving vehicles exiting St. Mark would be clearly visible to people going to
and from the park and adding the driveway at Cedarhurst Court places that driveway at
the furthest possible street from the park.
Third and perhaps most importantly, St. Mark is a growing and there will be more vehicles
regardless of the decision on the amendment.
By expanding the parking lot, more vehicles will be able to remain in the St. Mark property
rather than parking in the neighborhood streets.
This has two benefits.
First, the expanded parking better ensures vehicles do not disrupt neighborhood activities
such as children playing in the street, something that I truly find joy in seeing.
Second, by having vehicles in St. Mark's property, safety is enhanced because there
are fewer cars parked on the street that could unexpectedly begin moving and catch a pedestrian
off guard.
Additionally, the fewer vehicles on the street reduces the risk of accidents, both from people
pulling out or from cars traveling as they navigate a street with reduced width from
parked vehicles.
Again, I'd like to thank the commission for the opportunity to speak and commend the staff
of the city for their exceptionally well-conducted study and clear and concise reports, and again
voice my strong support for the amendment.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Any questions at this time?
I'm going to ask you a quick question.
Do you walk to church when you go?
At this point I don't currently because there's no way to enter the church.
I would be walking to church when the new driveway opens.
So run me through.
I don't know what mass you go to.
Is it one of the high times on Sundays?
Typically we go to nine or 11.
Okay.
So one of the most visited masses.
So how is it to get back to your house?
Right now, we typically go down Meandering Creek because that's the easiest access back
to Cedarhurst Court rather than going out the main entrance.
With the driveway, we would go in and out of that driveway most of the time except for
when it's very cold.
We go in the northwest so we don't mind the cold as much.
Most likely walk down and go into the driveway and if we drove we would drive into that driveway
directly from Cedarhurst Court crossing over Carnegie Ridge and into St. Mark's property.
Thank you for sharing that.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for the time.
Thank you.
Next card I have is Clyde Cotton.
Could you display the slide that shows the public outreach?
If you will state your name and address and your time will begin then.
Yes.
My name is Clyde Cotton and I'm a resident on Woodmere Court.
That would be the street right here.
The first thing, two things, the red boundary suggests only the people that their vote counts
with respect to requiring the three-fourths super majority vote.
When you look at this, all of those people on Meandering Creek will likely not be affected
by any of the traffic on Carnegie Ridge much.
Most of those people that enter the Carnegie Ridge new driveway, well, a lot of them will
go north, or I'm sorry south, that would be toward Crawford Road.
So the Meandering Creek people, I doubt if any of them voted, only the people, there's
about two or three houses on each of these cul-de-sac streets, Woodmere, Cedarhurst,
and this first one up here, there's only two or three houses on each of those that get
to vote in that.
That's not quite right because all of these people that live up in this area right here
are going to have to use Carnegie Ridge.
So they need to at least have a public voice in that.
I can't vote.
I'm about where that red house is right here.
That's about where I live.
So I'm probably within the 500 feet boundary, but not the 200 foot.
So my vote doesn't count.
Then the second thing, that's all on that.
A lot of the questions that I had weren't answered by Julie, thank you, and the other
people that spoke, but this Carnegie Ridge right here at Carnegie Ridge and Crawford
Road is already a dangerous intersection, and I'll tell you why.
There's a hill right here, it peaks about right here where I'm pointing, Woodmere.
That's about 500 or 600 feet, 600 feet maybe down from Carnegie Ridge, and if you are coming
down Carnegie Ridge and you want to go east on Crawford, you have almost, well, you do
have some visibility with respect to the top of that hill, but if there's a car coming
over that hill fast, it's dangerous.
It already is, and it's going to be more dangerous because there's most of the people coming
out of Carnegie Ridge, and I think some of the research showed they're going to want
to go east here on Crawford, and that means they've got to cross the westbound traffic.
I don't know what the solution is, but it needs to be mitigated some way because there's
going to be an accident there eventually.
I wouldn't say almost had an accident, but it scares me to death to go through that because
during prime time when there's a lot of cars coming over that hill, you don't know how
fast they're coming, and if you're not pretty quick, you may have an issue.
I believe that's all I have to say.
We're talking about putting an officer here at Crawford and the south entrance to the
church.
There may have to be another one down here.
There's a problem there, a warning light at the top of the hill or something to help control
that traffic flow there because it is dangerous.
I use it every day, and it worries me.
It just so happens I have a standard shift car, and that makes it even doubly worse trying
to get through that intersection, and thank you for hearing me.
- Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
We appreciate it.
Next card I have is Brian Rush.
Good evening.
- Thank you.
Planning and zoning commission, thanks for allowing me to speak on the matter.
I live in the neighborhood at 6309 Meandering Creek Drive.
I am a parishioner of the church.
I don't have any second thoughts about anything that's being proposed by the church, as I
think they've worked well with the community, have been a positive impact on our neighborhood.
I was very impressed that our neighborhood reacted and created a petition with an extreme
amount of people who signed, but I think that boils down to the fact that people moved in.
The PD was already accepted before the neighborhood was even thought about, so we've been watching
the construction going on, and basically the letter that came out from the city, and I
paraphrase says that the bishop has requested to increase seating, parking, and to modify
access, where that's a little bit distressing to someone who would read this, because they
didn't know that per the PD, access was granted to Carnegie Ridge, so I think that's the reason
we have such a number of people who are against the proposal.
Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
Can I ask you a quick question?
>> Sure.
>> So do you think that people were confused at what the request was?
Is that what you mean?
>> Well, no, I'm just thinking that the letter should have stated what had already prior
been approved.
>> I see.
>> Because when you read the letter, you're thinking, oh, they're wanting to put access
to Carnegie Ridge, not knowing that it had actually already been approved.
>> Yeah.
Very good.
>> Thank you.
Next card I have is a Diane Priest.
Hello, if you'll give your name and address, your time will begin.
>> My name is Diane Priest.
I'm at 6505 Ridge Lea Court, so I'm the very first -- I'm right here and I'm on the second
house, and I am for the church plan.
St. Mark is my parish.
That's actually why I bought there.
I knew the church was expanding, I was told, when we purchased the home, and that's the
very reason why we're there.
I was on the fence, actually, until I went to the meeting on the 11th.
I heard lots of pros and cons on our Facebook page, was well aware of the petition, wasn't
something I wanted to sign because I didn't have all the information yet.
And then going to the meeting, it was very well done.
It was explained that, yes, in 2012 it was already voted on way before our homes even
existed or were even a thought.
And the only thing that was changing was we're adding a few more parking and relocating for
the benefit of traffic and the community.
I don't think anybody wants traffic in their neighborhood.
But we bought a cross from a church, so that was inevitable.
My backyard is Crawford Road.
I am very impacted by the last four years, all the added traffic from the community.
But that's progress, nothing I can do.
I was impacted by the expansion and redevelopment of that road, nothing I could do.
We took eight trees behind my home, and I realized that's progress.
I think what really helped me make my decision was knowing that in the future we are having
this growth period.
Our church will grow, the community will grow, and what concerns me is parking on that street.
If we don't have the parking in the parking lot, it'll be on Meandering Creek here, it'll
be on Carnegie Ridge, and it could even be up our cul-de-sac.
Right now, that little park, we have people who come and will park on the street.
So I can just imagine once we grow and we don't have room for parking in here, it will
overflow up our street and down the street.
I'm not concerned with a lot of talk about it impacting children.
I see children with their parents when they're on bikes.
This park is not used very often, and certainly on Sundays.
It's very quiet.
So from my house here, I see all of this, and so I'm just sharing that I don't see
an impact of a lot of children.
Of course, I care about children.
No one wants to see anyone hurt, but I don't think they're running around wild anywhere,
as we're talking a couple of masses with maybe a 15-minute period with controlled professionals
taking care of that.
So with that, that really helped me make my decision that I think it feels safe.
I think it's a great projection for the future, for safety, and thank you for listening.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Next card I have is Greg Mundy.
Somehow you knew that.
That's great.
Before I even called your name.
I'm Greg Mundy.
I live at 6517 Noname Street, which is Ridgely Court, and we're at the top of the hill there.
And I really wasn't going to say anything until I listened to some of this, but the
access to get from Carnegie Ridge into the church, we now have to go down to Meandering
Creek, drive down, and we come around in the back side.
We don't go out on Crawford Road, so we're going all the way around.
And so, of course, when we leave, we come back that way.
And yeah, Carnegie Ridge is going to be impacted some, but for 10 or 15 minutes, two or three
times during the weekend, it's not going to be a big deal, especially if the church is
willing to possibly put an off-duty officer out there to help control some of the traffic.
I did hear, I didn't make the meeting at the church the other night, but I did hear that
there was one proposal that if anybody was parking around the back side of the church
on the north side, we park in this parking lot, wherever it's at, where is it, anyway,
we park in this parking lot right here.
And then if that access is not granted here at all, they were talking about one way, Meandering
Creek, to funnel it out to John Payne.
So we live here, we'd have to come down and around, park, and then we'd have to funnel
out and come all the way back around, getting into the Crawford Road traffic at the entrance
of the church, back to Carnegie Ridge, and then to our house.
And I think that this access to the parking lot will be nice for everybody that lives
on the west side, because right now, there's nothing there.
We either have to go out on Crawford Road and in or around Meandering Creek to park
in the back parking lot.
So if we have that access there, it would be a great benefit to, I think, everybody
that lives on the west side of the church.
So that's my two cents.
Thank you for sharing.
All righty.
Very much appreciated.
Thank you.
The next card I have is Cathy Mundy.
Hello.
Good evening.
I'm Cathy Mundy, and I live at 6517 Ridgeley Court.
I also would love to have access onto Carnegie Ridge.
If there was a way for us, we would be able to walk to church rather than having to drive.
And I think there's other people on that end that would be doing the same.
I'm not worried about kids during mass times at the park.
There's virtually no kids there on Sunday mornings, particularly.
And even in the afternoons, that park is rarely used.
And we need the parking places, otherwise people will be on the streets.
And there are a lot of walkers, and crossing the street in between cars can always be dangerous.
So I just want to say I'm in favor of it, and I think it would be good for the neighborhood
and the parish.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Next card I have is Greg Johnson.
Good evening.
Good evening, Chair, commissioners.
As always, thank you for your service.
My address is 3198 Teesley Lane in Denton.
You've seen me before.
We have.
I just wanted to make a couple of comments.
One, sometimes the meeting can become about something that it's not about.
So for clarification, for everyone in the room.
So the application is really about more seats, more parking spaces.
It's not about whether we get a driveway on Carnegie, because the driveway on Carnegie
is already approved.
The church could just build it where it's already approved.
But moving it makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.
So this is really about more seats, more parking spaces.
And sometimes facts help.
So we've got 1,173,000 square feet of land, to kind of put it in perspective.
Right now we've got 20,000 feet of building, adding the new church sanctuary, which we've
only been waiting like 30 years for.
At 20% coverage of our land area, that would be 300,000 square feet covered.
So we've got a lot of space, is what I'm saying.
And what we're talking about is adding seats, not making the building bigger.
And we're talking about adding some parking spaces, which we have gobs of room to do.
And so I think it's helpful to kind of get that visual.
25% coverage of our lot would be 300,000 square feet.
We could argue all day about whether this thing should have ever even been a PD in the
first place.
But that was in vogue at the time, and the church was amenable, and that's all great.
The neighborhood on the west side came later.
I can tell you from experience, there's nobody flying out of there on Sunday.
So danger to children at the playground should not be a concern because you inch your way
out of there.
And today, you can see like half of the parking lot, the east side, can get out to Meandering
Creek.
And they've gotten smart because it's a nightmare to get out on Crawford, which we don't control
Crawford.
The city of Denton doesn't control Crawford.
Crawford is what it is.
And so what's happened is now many of the people park on the east side.
Well, the entire parking lot is full at 1130.
That's about the only mass the entire thing is full.
And I won't try to repeat what other people said, but if we get an entrance onto Carnegie
Ridge is not the topic for conversation.
It's already approved.
We could just go build it.
But there's a lot of reasons why it makes sense to move it.
But let's say you didn't, which is what some people are advocating for.
You're going to throw half the people out onto Meandering Creek, which is already in
this neighborhood.
And when you turn right to get to John Payne, it's a nightmare.
So what do you think people are going to do?
They're going to turn left to go to Carnegie Ridge, which is exactly where the other driveway
was going to be anyway.
So I just wanted to say like I'm in full support of this.
St. Mark has been a wonderful neighbor to this community.
St. Mark was already there when the west side of that neighborhood was built.
And I would also say that this is another, well, just an example of clarity in what gets
sent out in the letter is super important.
And that the statement that went out in the letter about modification to access, well,
that is true.
We're saying let's move the thing.
And I think moving the driveway probably was a city request because it now lines up with
a street, which makes a ton of sense.
And it makes a ton of sense for stacking and all that stuff within the parking lot and
keeping people off the street, you can stack more in the parking lot.
But that statement in the letter could be really confusing to a resident that doesn't
do this all the time.
So obviously I'm in support of this.
I think it's the conversation really is about, do we have enough land to add some parking?
And do we have enough building to add some seats?
That's where we are.
Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson, appreciate it.
Any questions?
Thank you.
Next card I have is Mark Cohen, Cohen, Cohen.
I think.
Good evening.
Chair, committee.
Thank you very much for having this meeting.
I live at 6705 Cedarhurst Court.
I'm at the top of the court, so I'm not in that impacted area directly.
However, I am a little concerned.
First of all, I want to say I have nothing against the church expanding in its growth
and its parking.
I think it's wonderful.
We need that.
I have been concerned about what is the traffic going out on Carnegie Ridge.
I understand the initial decision was made at the time when the only people who could
have made an objection or the only things that could have made an objection were coyotes
and deer.
That was it.
These decisions were made when those houses weren't there.
I wonder what would have happened if you'd had homeowners there at the time, what you
would have heard.
But that is what it is.
I understand what the traffic study is saying, but I can tell you, I have tried to get out
of Carnegie Ridge at the same time mass is letting out.
That's a long sit.
You wait.
Now, I go west.
I'm lucky.
I can usually catch a break somewhere.
If I have to go the other way, I'm going to have to go down, go around Meandering Creek,
come out John Payne, go around and round about, forcing traffic down that way.
I still am ambivalent about it.
I realize that there's going to be an entrance there one way or the other.
I'm not real crazy about it, but I just feel like I needed to get it on the record.
I will say that at Monday's meeting, a suggestion was made, and there seemed to be some acceptance
by the church to the idea of only opening up that entrance on Carnegie Ridge for the
times of highest use, primarily Christmas, Easter, any special holy days that were there.
And there seemed to be an indication that the church might be willing to do that, to
keep that exit blocked off so you didn't have people going out and just letting the existing
traffic use the two exits over there.
I don't know if they still are willing to hold to that, but the suggestion was made
and there was an indication on Monday night they would be willing to do that.
I don't know if that can have any impact on your decision or not, but I thank you very
much for your time.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Any questions?
No.
Thank you.
Next card I have is from Richard and Anita Fries.
You have to excuse me a little bit.
Hi.
Nice.
Nice to meet you.
It's great enough to you.
I probably have, I have nothing against the church, give me right on that, okay?
I think it's great and everything.
I just don't like the entrance coming out of there to Cedarhurst, because guess what?
I'm right there on the corner.
I'm 6,500 Cedarhurst Court.
If I would have known that, I would have never bought that house, because if you look down
the street, it's a closeout lot.
Pulte got her approval, I guess, to put this big house on that lot.
So between my house and the sidewalk, I got 9 feet.
All the other homes are 21 feet.
So yes, if I look out my dining room window, I'm looking right there at the driveway.
They're coming out of the church.
So that's just going to be jammin'.
And when I get company, okay, because I have a small driveway, they use Carnegie Ridge to
park on.
Well, that's going to be right there too.
So I just think it's going to be a major problem.
Another thing, I don't know if anybody's told you, but when you go up Carnegie Ridge to
Crawford, especially in the wintertime, that gets blocked up.
Because they can't make the hill.
And then if they can get out and they get on Crawford, that's another hill, like Keith's
talking about.
And they just spin and spin and spin, and sand is not the answer.
I mean, if it rains, the sand's covered up, and it does the same thing again.
That's just going to be a major problem, and it's going to be a backup.
And I can see a major problem if we do get an ice storm and that church leaves out.
Maybe it won't happen.
I don't know.
But if you get 10, 12 cars pulled up Carnegie Ridge trying to get out of Crawford, and they
can't make it, they're going to come back downhill.
There's no other place to go.
But I think that when they had that house approved through Poulty, I'm sure he got with
the city and everything, and they realized the church had that approval for the next
street up, for the driveway to come out of there, Melbrook or whatever it is, that might
have been okay, because it didn't interfere with my house.
But if you look on the map, where my house is, I got nine feet from there to the sidewalk.
So I get company comes, they park out there, and then I'm going to tell my people to move.
I mean, where am I going to park?
I guess that's it.
That's one of the biggest things, okay?
I have nothing against the church.
I just think that they should keep it back up at the other entrance.
That's what was approved for them.
I just think the Cedarhurst one's the wrong one.
The only thing I want to add is they're talking about 187 parking spaces coming out of that
entrance, or that exit.
If it could be reconfigured to where not so many, I mean, that's 187 versus larger amounts
than the other exits.
That's more than all the other two exits will exit out of.
Do you follow me?
And if they could move it up again, go back to Woodmere, reconfigure the parking spaces
-- I don't have an objection there, but 187 cars coming out of that exit right there at
our house, I don't see how it could not cause a cluster.
>> Let's just say it's not 187, let's just say it's half of them, that's still a ton
of cars coming out.
>> Well, it is.
But if they could just reconfigure it somehow to where not that many is coming out and move
the exit back up to Woodmere.
>> Thank you for sharing your thoughts, both of you.
Next card I have is Travis Clemens.
Hello.
>> I don't know how -- did I just give them to you?
>> No.
>> Thank you.
>> Put them on the -- this is very amateur, because I did this today, so.
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you, guys, for taking the time.
My name is Travis Clemens.
My family and I have lived here for about three years.
I live on 6520 Woodmere Court, so it's a couple feet off of the red line where my vote matters.
I want to highlight that I'm a very religious person.
I've attended religious masses every week of my whole life.
I've dedicated two years of my life to missionary service in the impoverished region of Argentina.
I have studied religion in college, and I've paid 10% of my income to religious charities
since the day I could do household chores.
So I want to implore you that my opinion in no way, shape, or form is against St. Mark
Catholic Church nor its divine purpose.
Also this is my first experience doing something like this, so forgive me.
So I just learned about this reading shortly, so my info is probably a little spotty.
My qualm here is against the exit.
I don't care how much parking they have, but I care about the exit onto my street.
I'm no lawyer.
I'm not an expert in urban planning, nor was I here when all this was approved back in
2012.
I'm an investment banker, and if my profession has taught me one thing, it's about trying
to find common ground between both parties that makes sense.
I believe that this exit is a negative externality, ill-affecting the neighborhood and not improving
traffic flow.
If you look at exhibit one, which is a Google Maps of the area question with some little
marks by me, I'd like to direct your attention to the little blue rectangles which are meant
to represent traffic from the church.
I've lived here long enough and seen thousands of times and experienced hundreds of times
that traffic is woefully congested on Crawford Road, and to a lesser extent, John Payne Road.
The reason for this is that there are only two main exits from this area, a single lane
stop sign at 35 West or a single lane stop light with a railroad on Fort Worth Drive,
which is further congested by the Argyle Sixth Grade Center as well.
These exits are the only options we have in this neighborhood as well as the members of
the church have to exit this area.
This is where my problem lies.
Ultimately, the church might minutely alleviate congestion outside its main south exit, but
ultimately this is not the problem, as traffic will remain congested on Crawford Road.
The proposed exit might save someone 15 seconds as they zip along Carnegie Ridge, but ultimately
will have to merge onto the congested Crawford Road just the same.
This is where my point of common sense comes up, constructing an exit on the west side
of the property on Carnegie Ridge will not aid in reducing traffic along Crawford Road,
rather it will just insert more dangerous traffic into that community.
Now looking towards the neighborhood more broadly, you will see that there are only
two entrances into our neighborhood, one which already serves as an entrance to the church.
Adding another exit or entrance on Carnegie Ridge will now disrupt the only two entrances
this neighborhood has.
And to quote my neighbor who lives outside the entrance on Meandering Creek, who did
not know about this meeting, "When the church services are starting and ending, we can't
even get out of our own driveway."
Looking towards Exhibit 2, you will see an image of this area back in 2013, a couple
months after this proposal was approved, and you'll notice there was no community here
to even vote on this matter.
Why should the community here today, who previously had no idea this was part of the plan, be
beholden to this proposal when there wasn't even representation for them at that time?
Further, when this proposal was approved back in 2012, the community pool was not part of
the plan.
Additionally, we have our community park just a block away.
We are proposing ejecting an exit, which will then have numerous cars entering and exiting
into the single most congested area of our neighborhood, as families frequently gather
at that pool and park.
I've heard many times that no one is there on the weekend, but I work the weekdays.
And so on the weekends, it's the only time I can go there with my family.
I also want to add that Meandering Creek, another street in our neighborhood that will
receive undeserved traffic, does not even have a sidewalk on the north side of the street,
if you look to Exhibit 3.
We are then proposing ejecting additional traffic on Meandering Creek, which is a street
that misses a sidewalk, which I don't have to say, but that doesn't make sense and is
more dangerous.
Now, if there was an exit on the northwest side of this neighborhood, going under 35
yards, I'd understand more inserting an exit on this side.
However, this doesn't exist, and cars will go the same way they go anyway onto Crawford
Road.
So why root Carnegie Ridge in the process?
In closing, I'm going to skip a little bit because I've got five seconds here, but I
don't understand why we are prioritizing the supposed more convenience of a meeting house
rather than the desires and safety of the communities and children in which it lies,
especially when that community did not have a voice back during the approval process back
in 2012.
But I hope you hear our voice now and the board understands the worries and concerns
of our community.
As I understand it, it's too late to change the addition of an exit, but it can be amended
by how much parking and where that exit lies.
I implore to the board to move the exit away from their neighborhood or eliminate it entirely,
otherwise they can have all the parking they want.
Sorry.
I went over.
That's all I got.
>> No, you're fine.
Thank you.
Any questions before I ask mine?
I have a question for you.
So it's your opinion that by moving -- so the driveway, as you've heard already, is
already approved.
>> Yes.
>> It was approved.
It's there now.
And it just hasn't been built yet, but it can be.
So you're saying with the realignment, you think that's going to invite more people to
come through meandering and down?
Because, I mean, they could -- >> From Woodland to Cedarhurst?
>> Yeah.
So you're thinking they're going to make a right out of there and go through your neighborhood
that way?
>> Well, my problems is I don't particularly care where that exit comes out of.
If it comes out of my street in Woodmere or Cedarhurst, I'm okay.
My thing is I don't want an exit altogether.
I know the proposal is to add more parking.
I'm completely fine with that.
Obviously, I'm a religious person.
More people in the church, the better.
I'm just trying to avoid congesting the only other street that's not already congested.
So if they want more parking, I'm totally in favor of that.
I just wish they would not put an exit on the only "clean street" that we have in this
neighborhood.
>> Right.
I mean, except they can't already do that.
>> Exactly.
Yeah.
Completely understood.
I wanted my opinion on the record.
>> Sure, sure.
So are you thinking it's -- in your opinion, is it better with the way it is now with where
it's proposed versus that realignment to the north?
>> I'm indifferent.
I would believe where it is now on Woodmere is better because it's less in the neighborhood.
So the further out it can be, the better because that affects less people, less children.
I don't like that it's next to a park and I don't like it's next to the pool, but obviously
it's going to go somewhere.
So I want it as far away from the -- as further outside as possible.
That's my opinion.
But again, my opinion is I don't want one at all.
>> Very good.
Well, thank you very much for coming to speak and for the information.
Next card I have is Justin Hilton.
>> Evening.
>> Good evening.
>> My name is Justin Hilton and I live at 6505 Meandering Creek which is in that 200-foot
line.
First I want to start by saying St. Mark's, beautiful church, outstanding, they've done
a great job.
I'm in the construction industry.
I've been in it for 15 years, commercial construction.
I've worked with Lindbeck quite a bit on other projects, so I understand how things go.
What I don't understand is how it got approved in 2012 before the neighborhood was even a
concept and why this entrance or the layout for the parking wasn't revisited prior to
getting approval for the neighborhood.
I know work I do on other sites and everything else, all this goes into consideration once
something else pops up.
So I'm having a hard time understanding that.
You can go to hospitals across DFW, you can go to other churches across DFW.
Typically, there's one to two entrances, so I just, again, I know they need more parking.
I just don't understand why there's necessarily need for a third entrance.
I've heard from numerous people that probably don't have children.
I have a four-year-old son and a seven-year-old son.
I live right on the corner.
That hinders their safety to me.
They ride bikes around the neighborhood.
They walk our dog around the neighborhood.
This is going to hinder my wife and myself, and we have to take our kids to baseball on
Saturday.
I go to church at the well on 30, 407 every Sunday.
This is an issue for us getting out of our neighborhood, and this is only going to hinder
it even more.
Yeah, you know, again, I've heard that this is a hindrance to their congregation, and
I get that.
But what about our community?
Because, you know, church is about community.
You know, Carnegie Ridge is a community.
So there needs to be a solution, and I know it's already approved and it's probably too
late, whatever.
I understand.
But I don't understand why we can't find some common ground here and try to make this right
for both parties.
And my last point is, at the end of the day, saving the congregation at St. Mark's five
minutes from clearing out their parking lot, is that more important than the safety of
all the kids in our neighborhood?
Yes, that's kind of where I stand, bottom line.
So I appreciate y'all's time.
Thank you.
Can I ask you a question?
Yes, ma'am.
So, I mean, with your -- I mean, you're in the construction business and commercial property.
So what do you think -- let's just pretend that this driveway wasn't -- what do you think
the fix is?
I don't know.
I know that I've heard talks, and I haven't been to all the meetings and everything.
But there's a retainage detention area on the east side of the church.
I mean, there's other sites that they reworked at, and they could have another entrance coming
out over there on John Payne or coming out on Crawford, further east of where that entrance
and exit is now.
I don't know.
But I know there's other solutions that's just not being talked about.
Okay.
So.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next card I have is Justin Quintana.
Good evening.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
I live off of 6613 Cedarhurst Court, so just right outside of that 500-foot range.
However, this does greatly affect me, no matter what.
I think the church is a great thing in our neighborhood.
I think every neighborhood needs a church.
It creates a center stone to the community.
And it's a pretty amazing-looking church as well.
That being said, I think the growth is going to be a lot greater than what's expected.
They talk about the growth is only going to come in spurts during, you know, holidays
and things of that nature.
I think with the way the church looks and the way that the community is growing, I think
they're going to expect to use these overflow lots a lot more than what they believe.
You know, kind of to what you're saying, like one thing that we might be able to do to assist
with the traffic control is adding a second driveway out for Crawford.
The reality is having that other driveway, there's no artery for cars to flow out of
there.
It flows right into another artery, which is Crawford, which is already going to be
congested during those times.
I believe if there was some other alternate route in the back that cars were able to get
out of there, that alternate exit would be an option.
And I think we also forget that cars are going to be using Carnegie Ridge to get into there
as well.
There's also an island or a raised median that is there right off of Crawford.
It gets hit pretty regularly.
There's rocks, the big boulders that are there, they get hit.
The landscaping is constantly getting damaged.
And that's just by people who live in the area.
As more and more cars go through there trying to be in a rush, we all know everyone's never
on time to go to church.
That's also going to get hit.
And we're going to start to see a higher propensity for accidents that are there.
And I believe the driveway is also looking to get moved from Woodmere to Cedarhurst,
a little bit closer towards the pool.
I think that's also another area where we're going to have more congestion.
There's the stop sign that's located off Carnegie Ridge and Meandering.
As we move that driveway closer, that's just going to be more congestion in the area, not
allowing cars to flow out of that parking lot if that driveway is going to be used.
So it's just going to continue to flow, cause more traffic back up.
That being said, as well, if an officer is going to be used off of Crawford in front
of the church, the point of that's going to be mitigated by allowing cars to exit off
of Carnegie at this point.
If he's controlling traffic and then we have another uncontrolled access at Carnegie Ridge,
we're kind of messing with ourselves and not really allowing that officer to do the job
that they're going to do to allow proper flow coming out of there.
Again, I think the church is awesome.
I think it's a great thing, but I do believe that in 2012 the growth was unforeseen in
the area and here we are 12 years later with a big community that surrounds it that's continuing
to grow and we only know that parishioners are going to continue to grow in that area
as well.
I think if we are looking to expand 180 cars or spots in there, that driveway I'm sure
can be taken a look at to say, "Hey, you know what, maybe that should be taken down as any
other church."
I think the churches all over the community use one access point to get in and out.
We can have a controlled access point with an officer there mitigating traffic issues
and here we're only adding more by allowing more and more cars to flow out of there and
I understand that yeah, cars can park on the street, but the reality is, I mean what, we
might get 60 cars that can park on Carnegie Ridge total or are we going to get 180 coming
out of that parking lot?
So thank you for your time everyone.
Thank you very much.
Let's see, next card I have is Sam Schoeniefeldt.
Good evening.
Thanks for allowing me to speak.
I'm Sam Schoeniefeldt, like the record said, and I live at 157 Hidden Valley Airport over
in Shady Shores.
But I just moved this summer out of Argyle.
We made our home after returning from the Air Force back in 2014.
One of the biggest draws of moving to Argyle was the Argyle ISD in St. Mark's Parish, which
was just started.
We got there obviously that the housing community hadn't been built completely around it yet,
but you could see that there was a potential for growth that would match the vision of
the community, which was I think one of the most warmest and welcoming communities that
we've ever been a part of, and we saw that that growth would be beneficial to the community
at every level.
You know, the church likes to say that it's a hospital for sinners, and we help people
on many levels, not just financially or from a charity or anything like that, but building
them up and making them better citizens.
So I think that and that growth and the mission of the church in bringing people to a better
state is something that's worth considering.
Having grown up in Argyle for the last nine years, or raised my kids in Argyle and sent
my youngest through Argyle ISD until he graduated in 2020, Crawford Road's the problem here.
It's not St. Mark's.
Crawford's a nightmare either way.
It used to be just 377, it was a problem, but now trying to get underneath the bridge
on 35W, it's just, it's crazy.
Go there at seven o'clock in the morning or five o'clock, four o'clock in the afternoon,
and it's just itched in.
St. Mark's footprint within that congestion really isn't even, it's not significant.
So I would just bring that for your consideration.
So the community was destined to grow.
We knew that when we got here, but we also think that St. Mark's should as well because
of the benefits that it gives to the community.
And that's all I have to say.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you as well.
Next card I have is Joyce Steiner.
Hello.
Hi, my name is George Steiner and I live at 6501 Richley Court, first house by the stop
sign right across the street from the church.
I have no problem with the church.
All my neighbors go to the church.
I drove with them here.
My problem is the traffic.
My house sits about eight feet from the street.
The city of Denton took 26 feet of my backyard and eight feet.
So I don't have a backyard.
So I'm sitting in my side yard facing, facing Carnegie Ridge.
I've seen the traffic in the mornings when I'm out drinking hot chocolate.
I see the traffic in the evening.
And to turn on Carnegie Ridge from Crawford, we don't have really a turning lane.
We have a turning spot.
One car can get to that spot.
And if the traffic coming from Crawford Road to Carnegie, it's going to back up to that
hospital, because it already does.
And the cars, they go real fast.
I've seen several accidents.
I've seen a truck go in the ditch on the cross by the church.
So the traffic for me is the big problem.
Like I said, I don't have a backyard.
I just have a side yard.
And when I sit out there, I smell the fumes.
I hear the noise and the line in the mornings and in the evenings, it's just, I don't have
a buffer.
There's no buffer.
So I don't know what the solution is, but that traffic is going to be incredible.
And it's going to impact me.
I can't get away from it.
My patio faces Carnegie Ridge.
My backyard, which is eight feet, is up against Crawford.
So if they could do something, I would be happy.
That's all I got to say.
Thank you very much, Ms. Dyna.
Next card I have is from the Stokes.
Hi there.
Yes.
My name is Tito Stokes, and I sit right there, or I reside right there at 5779 Meandering
Creek.
I'm sorry.
6501 Meandering Creek.
I put an old address, I was thinking about another house, maybe thinking about moving.
Just kidding.
So yes, I'm at 6501 Meandering Creek, and my house sits right next door to Justin and
right next behind my neighbor Richard.
And one of the impacts that I do see with that parking being sitting there, coming out
of the new parking that's proposed for it to come out further north, is that it's also
going to have a major impact on Meandering Creek.
It's also a main wayfare of neighborhood traffic that are trying to get out of there, or even
just coming back home from wherever they've been going.
And again, I don't have a problem with the church.
I love the church.
I'm a church-goer myself, and I see this being an impact for the neighborhood, for us to
go to church, as they're also having their different masses at different times and things
like that.
So I see that being a major, major issue with us also trying to get to church and wherever
we may be trying to go on Sunday.
The other thing that I know I can stand there, look out my window as well, or in my yard,
there's church functions going on throughout the year.
It's not just on Sunday.
There's major things that happen at all churches, different functions, different things that
happen that go on at the church, so they don't just happen on Sunday.
And I think we also need to just also know that the neighborhood isn't just laying there
or watching out our windows, watching everybody come to St. Mark's.
We're also trying to get to church ourselves on Sunday morning, some go on Saturdays as
well.
There's also services on Saturdays as well.
So they're not just on Sunday, it's throughout the week.
There's Wednesday night services, Tuesday night, you know what I mean?
So there's different services and activities that continue to happen.
But again, to have that, to move that parking entrance and exit further north into the belly
of the neighborhood is going to have a major impact to stop all of that traffic from everyone
coming from their own homes that are going up and down Meandering Creek.
They're going to make that left or that right on Carnegie Ridge and they're going to be
stuck.
So it's not going to just be five or six or seven minute if you've got 186 cars trying
to get out of there or you have 50 cars trying to get out of there.
It is a major traffic zone right there at Carnegie Ridge and Meandering Creek.
And I see it because I see it every day, all day for the past five years.
And there was one time Carnegie Ridge wasn't open.
It was a closed street at one point before all the houses that were built on our west
end.
It was a closed street when I first moved there.
So most of the traffic and everyone had to go around to John Payne to get out of the
neighborhood as well.
So just something to put into consideration that to move that entrance and exit further
down into the neighborhood is going to have a major, major impact on the neighborhood
as well.
So that's all I wanted to add.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.
Did you get my new address?
6501.
I'm changing it now.
That's the last card that I have here, but this is a public hearing.
And even if you didn't fill out a card, you are welcome to come and speak.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak?
Yeah, come on.
You can fill out a card after.
Just come up here and state your name and address and your time will begin.
I wasn't going to speak, but now I'm going to.
My name is Kathy Henderson.
I live at 6501 Woodmere, so I'm the third house in.
Oh, sorry.
I was at his house, 6509 Woodmere.
I'm the third house in.
My house backs the park, okay?
So from my backyard, I can see the park.
And to say that the kids that don't play there on the weekend, I watch out my back porch
and they're out there constantly.
There is no parking for the park.
They park on the streets.
That Carnegie Ridge is a two-lane street, so if anyone parks on that street, you have
to use the other lane.
So to put on that massive amount of exiting church traffic, that does completely impact
our street, whether it's on Meander or Woodmere.
The Woodmere one, at least, was between the streets, so they couldn't just pull into somebody's
neighborhood.
And then the pool is also on one end of the Carnegie, and the park is on the other.
Neither one has sufficient parking in our HOA, which was nothing we could have changed
at the time.
When I bought the house, they didn't mention anything about this new exit, or I would not
have purchased that house either.
They say that the traffic will only be Sundays and Saturdays.
I went out yesterday in the afternoon, and they must have had a funeral or something.
So there was traffic backed all the way up Crawford to 35 past their church entrance.
So to say it's going to be minimal traffic, that's not true.
There needs to be some kind of change, because all that does is push the traffic to Crawford
at a faster rate, at least having two exits, they can flow the traffic a little slower.
Thank you for sharing it.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak who has not filled out a card?
Howdy.
Hi.
I'm Marshall Jennings.
I live at 6408 Roaring Creek Drive.
I don't go to church.
I'm not affiliated with the church.
However, I do think that it's something to discuss the future prospects of this, given
that many people have, oh, the community's growing, oh, the 10-year plan.
So if you look at the total volume of parking spots, it would be 456 spots for all the lots
that are planned or being built.
So given the very extreme situation of having nigh 500 vehicles parked there and trying
to leave all at the same time, because that's just how church services go, I think that
having 180 of those going through practically the heart of the neighborhood and 140 of those
going through Mandarin Creek, which they already do since that's already an exit, I think that's
an issue that in the future that if the total capacity is dealing with that and then already
Crawford is already an issue, so that having all those vehicles going through it and so,
okay, back up.
So 130 of those already go immediately or they have plans to go immediately on to Crawford.
140 of those go through Education Meandering, John Payne to Crawford, and then proposed
187 of those are going to go to Carnegie to Crawford.
Everybody's going to Crawford, so regardless of where they go, it's already going to be
an issue and it's already an issue as a road anyways, regardless of what the future prospects
might be.
And again, 187 of those going into the heart of the neighborhood, even at an intersection
or into a T-intersection into the middle of the block.
For example, you're already going to have people stuck at Carnegie and Crawford, given
the hill situation, given it's a left turn, right turn only intersection.
I think that if I were in a situation coming off onto Crawford from this new parking lot
at this new intersection and I look left and I see 20, 30 people waiting to turn onto Crawford,
I'm going to go through the neighborhood, which of course disadvantages everyone living
there, everyone living across the street at this intersection, everyone on Meandering Creek
who has to deal with it, and there's already people here at this hearing that have voice
complaints about living at the Meandering Creek intersection already.
So add, what, half of 180 going the other way down Meandering, they're going to have
an even bigger issue.
And then again, I think it's also worth considering that these are three cul-de-sacs that are
at the whim of whatever traffic might be on Carnegie Ridge, and again, the smallest intersection
there right, smallest cul-de-sac right at the intersection already has to deal with
all the things going on turning onto Crawford, let alone again having the maximum possible
capacity of 180 vehicles coming down through there additionally on top of whatever might
already going through given regular neighborhood traffic.
I think it's also worth bringing up the known St. Mark's schedule, which is to say that
on Sunday, they have 7 a.m. service, 9 a.m. service, 1130 a.m. service, and a 4 p.m.
service.
Monday, none.
Tuesday, they have a 730 a.m.
Wednesday, they have a 7 p.m. and a confessional service later.
Thursday, they have a 730 a.m.
Friday, they have a 730 a.m.
Saturday, they have a 5 p.m. and a 7 p.m. and then an earlier confessional.
And that's not even including Holy Days, special occasions, fundraisers, what have you.
So given, again, thinking of the future, 450 vehicles at this time throughout the entire
week on top of Holy Days, that's a lot to deal with with a neighborhood that already
deals with what they deal with.
So thinking future maximum possible, the worst case scenario, it's going to be horrible
for everyone, not just the churchgoers.
Yeah, that's my two cents.
Thank you.
Do you see a better solution than what is being proposed this evening?
Just where, I think, okay, I think what would be interesting is instead of having the intersection,
the road go off into here, into the heart of the neighborhood basically, and then this
intersection is already bad enough, is else to have take the tangent of these curves and
go straight on to Crawford or else have the opposite tangent and go all the way across
to John Payne.
This all the way across to Carnegie wouldn't make sense given the topography of the hill
and already right there into an intersection.
But I think having three main ones and then just splitting the traffic as you will onto
Crawford, which everyone's going to go anyway, so might as well already push them there,
would help.
Another solution I think would be expanding this intersection to be more like this, have
it wider, more lanes, what have you, onto Crawford, and then also make it a, let's see,
looking south, have it be right turn.
Everyone going westbound would be in the right lane and everyone going eastbound would be
in the left lane.
So on special days, Sunday, what have you, and especially if we have the officer there
directing traffic or monitoring, have it be, instead of an actual intersection, have everyone
going right, go west, everyone going left, go east.
And then of course, especially with this loop we have around the church, the complex, split
it at the back.
So everyone in this north parking lot, figure out what you're doing, go the according direction,
and then go left or right.
Everyone here, go around, or through there, everyone here, go around, wherever you need
to be, instead of having an intersection here and dealing with the neighborhood, which I
would think would be more trouble than it's worth, honestly.
Thank you very much, appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
I don't have any more cards.
If you haven't spoken already, you may come down and do so.
Hello.
My name is Rick Villarreal, I live here in the city, but I go to St. Mark's, I don't
live in that neighborhood.
One of the things I do want to point out is that I go on to Mass there regularly on Sundays.
We don't have large traffic pileups, we don't, I mean, we do have, Crawford Road gets backed
up, it gets backed up every day.
I try to go down on 35, and that's not church traffic that's holding me up to the back of
the church, it's just regular traffic trying to get down that road, it is a bad problem.
Crawford Road is the problem.
But one thing I want to make sure that everybody understands is that we're talking about these
numbers of 456 parking spots.
It's only being built that for on those days when you have the maximum amount of people
that you wouldn't want parking on streets or parking in grass or parking any other place.
As the numbers were given out earlier, most of the time you have 600 people at Mass.
When you break that down to the number of people per cars, that usually rounds out to
about probably 185 to 200 total cars in the parking lot at a particular mass when you
have 600 people, because it's family, church has a lot of families, you have two people,
four people, five people in a car.
So when you're departing the parking lots out of there, it is not 180 people coming
out of one exit at one time, 140 people coming out of another exit at the other time.
When you divide those numbers up out of those exits, you will find that those numbers are
going to be much less.
And having had to deal with parking problems at other places before, I think sometimes
that gets a little overblown.
I understand being in a neighborhood and I understand concerns about the traffic, but
I also want to make sure that people understand that it is not all of that happening every
Sunday, every mass where you've got those kinds of cars coming out on that traffic is
just not realistic.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Appreciate it.
My name is Robert Cosas, I live at 6700 Woodmere Court.
And I'm a parishioner, good father there.
I have no problems with the church.
The additional parking spaces, if you drive by on our major feasts, Sundays, holidays,
you're parking a park on the grass, so give them concrete to park on versus parking on
the lawn, right?
So it makes sense.
Making the sanctuary bigger, it makes sense to allow the people to come and participate
together instead of different groups, right?
The other thing I bring up that no one's talked about, which I think is interesting is, so
I live at the very end of Woodmere, but if you could somehow zoom in, I live at the top
of the hill.
Okay?
I think Julie can help you with that.
Can you help me make it bigger?
I just want to point out something that's unique, no one's said yet.
On Cedar, okay, yeah, that's perfect.
If you look at the streets, Cedarhurst and Woodmere, and I know we've got a number of
people from it, and Clive lives two houses away from me, you go up when you come up,
so if you move the intersection, wherever you put it, if you put it at Cedarhurst, you
put it at Woodmere.
The other thing, and I called the county and I've never gotten responses on it, on signage,
they're dead ends.
So if you're in a hurry leaving church and you're going to go up to Cedarhurst thinking
I'm going to go out that way, right, you're going to create problems.
So there needs to be the signage that should say on those streets right now, there's no
outlet, right?
And the same thing, if you think you're going to cut down Meandering Creek and you're going
to take Russian Creek, you're going to go in a circle and come back out.
The only outlet is Meandering Creek at John Payne and Carnegie Ridge.
So and maybe the Good Father can help us educate our parishioners that when you're going to
leave church, those are your exits, because all you're going to do is drive up and we
see people come up, Woodmere, come flying up and realize that there's no place to go.
And they get to turn around real fast and drive back down the hill.
So and especially if it's on the street, wherever it ends up being, whether it's Woodmere or
Cedarhurst, there needs to be signage.
And the other thing you heard a lot about is on that would be the east side of Carnegie
Ridge is part of, I would think is part of the study.
They've talked about restricting parking.
So there'd be, again, signage for people, you know, and it says that you shouldn't,
like during the services, you're not going to want people parking on Carnegie Ridge on
the east side, which creates a problem because on the west side of Carnegie is the park.
So people want to use a park on Sunday morning, which is our ability to do so.
I don't have any small children, but you know, they're going to have to park, they're going
to park by the park.
So you're going to have a parking issue.
So you have to think about restricting parking, because it is true.
If you got the playground on the west side of Carnegie, and if you're having church services
and you have some type of like, we have events at the park, right, we have food truck come,
we have events, people park both sides, it will create problems during when they're both
competing for the same space.
But my biggest request from what you do here in the commission is to put more signage up
and let people know that whatever you're going to end up agreeing to and whatever gets permitted,
that they put up a public signs so we don't have a bunch of people running up and down
the streets and turn around and coming back, which creates more congestion at the intersection.
Because there's nothing that tells people those are dead ends.
Thank you.
Can I ask you a question?
Sure.
So are you in favor of the request before us?
I look at it this way, and I know there's been a lot of good exchange, okay, and that
makes it healthy.
I'm in favor of the fact that it's approved already, right?
So I agree wholeheartedly that it was poorly communicated that people don't know what we
thought we had an ability to change.
It's already been granted.
The issue is surely the church can have those seats, surely the church can have the additional
parking spaces.
It's on their land.
Like they said, it's a small percentage.
And you don't have to make people park on the grass.
They're going to still attend church, and like the others said, they're going to park
on our sidewalks.
I mean, on our streets, right?
So they're going to be going into our neighborhoods more.
So it makes all the sense in the world.
And it was granted.
I don't know whether it makes more sense to have it on Cedarhurst, so you have more of
a flow before it gets to Carnegie Ridge, that if you try to put it at Woodmere, you're shortening
the distance of how many cars between, you know, it gets to Crawford.
I don't know if that helps.
That's not my specialty.
But it's been approved.
So I'm supportive.
All I'm trying to say is that the education piece is what's hurt us a little bit.
And that's why we got so many people here, because we didn't know what was already approved,
right?
So I support, Father, what you're trying to do, but I understand for our neighborhoods
of safety and security, everything, there's a lot of education that would need to take
place beyond what we're doing right now.
But I hope, thanks for listening.
Thank you as well.
This is a public hearing.
I don't have any cards in front of me.
But if you would like to speak and have not done so already, please come on down.
Good evening.
Hi.
So first, I live with the gentleman at 6501 Meandering Creek.
We've been there.
I understand.
That is my husband.
Yes.
We have been there for five years.
Yes.
That was interesting, the new address that we have.
So we live at the corner, right?
And it was, you know, I've been listening all evening to what everyone had to say.
It is a bit disheartening as a homeowner.
The communication hasn't been great.
It's disheartening as a homeowner to know that something was approved prior to or even
thought of living in this community.
It's a wonderful community.
We have the advantage, like some others, to be able to look out our dining room window.
And we've been watching the church grow today.
We were super excited to see the dome go on.
So we're super in support.
We're Christians.
We go to church.
All of the things that everyone has said, I don't want to belabor that point.
I just think that there's got to be a way.
My biggest personal concern is, as we've all determined, Crawford Road is an issue.
That stop sign is an issue.
I personally, on a quiet day, have almost had an accident with the people flying down
Crawford Road.
So for me, for my sake, I would love that we could commit to having an officer at the
stop sign, because we can't do anything about the fact that there will be a driveway in
and out.
Right?
So there's no argument here.
I don't think that we're going to get that change.
But how we deal with it now is the most important thing to me as a homeowner, before I put a
for sale sign and move to 5779, wherever that is.
I would love to see a commitment from the church to help us with our community in terms
of getting out at those times that we have the larger mass times, even if it was the
morning mass and then in the evening mass.
I do know as a person that lives in the community, I'll leave not thinking about the church has
let out and then get out on Crawford Road and get stuck trying to go across 377.
I'm like, oh gosh, the church let out.
And so it's all a lot.
So I'm just hoping that as a community, and I wanted it to be on record, if the church
can commit to helping us, putting an officer not only at the Crawford exit, but at the
Carnegie Ridge exit for the safety of all of us and our children and the community and
the parishioners, I personally would be satisfied with that.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak who has not done so?
Hello.
Good evening.
My name is Kevin Eming.
I'm the applicant that's been working with Julie to get all this information filled out.
So I was just talking with Father and he wanted me to come up and share that we will commit
to putting that officer out on Crawford Road at the church entrance.
So he just wanted to make sure that that was perfectly clear that we will make that commitment
today.
Thank you for sharing that.
Excuse me.
And the other thing that Father George wanted me to communicate is on the connection to
Carnegie Ridge from our parking lot that Monday through Friday that we will have a gate there
so that way people cannot exit out of our property out onto Carnegie Ridge Monday through
Friday.
So it also benefits St. Mark too because people can't cut through and use that as a cut through
pass.
So we will commit to that of restricting that exiting off of to Carnegie Ridge Monday through
Friday.
Thank you very much for conveying that.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak who has not done so?
Okay seeing none.
I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion
with the commissioners.
Commissioner Smith.
Thank you Chair.
Julie, can I ask you a quick question and then I will want to talk to the applicant,
whoever wants to represent the applicant after this question.
You probably can't see it on there but just looking at Google maps and being out there
on that site there is a stretch of sidewalk that goes down from near the public pool down
to the property line of the church.
This PDA has nothing to do with that sidewalk connectivity down to that driveway at this
time correct?
Correct.
They have constructed the sidewalk, I'm sorry the sidewalk on Carnegie Ridge right?
Yes, on the on the east side of it though.
Yes, they have constructed that sidewalk.
They left a gap there.
Does it go all the way down to like Cedarhurst or does it go down to Woodmere or where does
it go down to?
Right now and oh can you see is that?
That's what I can see on Google Maps.
They left that there with the expectation they would be coming forward with this plan
development amendment if it didn't get approved then that would they would have to maybe reconfigure
that okay complete that sidewalk and it's not but it's that extension of that sidewalk
is not part of the PDA in front of us correct okay would the applicant be amenable to that
being a condition made to expand that sidewalk stretched down to that that extension?
I would argue that it's already a condition because it was part of the original 2012 approval
that we have to provide a 10-foot sidewalk around the perimeter of the church and that's
the church property okay so it is it's something we have to do anyway.
It's in the 2012 okay that's what I was trying to ask earlier so stay up there real quick.
Is that sidewalk just to that that extension or to that that that entrance way or it's
to the entrance way wherever it is whether it's at its current alignment on the plan
or to the proposed alignment the sidewalk stops there at that entrance or does it go
all the way down to Crawford?
It goes all the way to Crawford.
Okay if I it's it's it's already on the west on the west side correct on the yeah on the
west side it's already been constructed except for there's probably a 60-foot Kevin.
Could you come up to the mic please yeah just because we're we're on we're on camera thank
you so what we've constructed to date is on the east side of Carnegie Ridge starting at
Meandering Creek the sidewalk existed about 40 foot down so we started picking up from
there report a section we left the gap where this future roadway would connect so we continued
that all the way up to Crawford down Crawford and then back John John Payne that's all been
constructed within the last eight months that was that was all I was asking I didn't on
the Google aerial couldn't see that so what I hear what I hear is on the east side there's
a sidewalk there there's a stretch there for an entrance so yeah it's part of the city
of Denton's trail and path system we requested that we were required to do a 10-foot wide
sidewalk around the entire perimeter of the church okay thank you very much I appreciate
it no other questions for me okay anybody else at this time Mr. Olson while you're up
there I guess I've got a question for you so I'm assuming you've studied this with your
engineers as to you know that drive yeah is there in the 2012 you know it's it's kind
of there where it's supposed to be no one really exactly knows but I assume you've studied
this site to understand the best flow of traffic not only for your parishioners but obviously
taking the neighborhood into consideration as well yeah because I think your traffic
engineer kind of alluded to when he gave his testimony that we're concerned about the geometry
of the intersection no one wants to have a t inner a t driveway especially when that
potentially has high value going mid-block so we'd much rather have it at the intersection
to allow free flow of traffic and stuff that that's why that was done and it was moved
north just because it allows more internal sacking as I mentioned to to allow us to
internalize the stacking on our property instead of trying to do it someplace else okay understood
great thank you anything else okay thank you thank you commissioner Smith I'm gonna make
a motion before I say so I think that just to say thank you to those that came out and
spoke tonight greatly appreciate it I think that it was heard by myself and the commissioners
that safety was a key issue that was raised and because of the the right of the already
billed by right approval of that driveway that's there and the city staff and traffic
engineers taking taking obviously safety always into consideration the move to having it a
line there at Cedarhurst makes the most amount of sense for safety purposes and so if it's
a already can be built there then what's the safest way for it to exist in my mind and
to the point of increased seats and that's really what the the three factors of this item
in front of us is the realignment of the already approved driveway then the increased seats
as well as the increased parking I think that's it's certainly something that could have been
envisioned maybe a little bit before but it was 10 11 years ago and you know it's it's
hard to make three-year projections in today's climate as it is to make 11-year projections
and so and with that being said due to the nature of this being a planned development
a PD if this was not a PD and it was just a straight zoning case because of the land
use the amount of space that this property takes up now on the piece of property this
realignment this this the amount of parking spots and the amount of seats in the building
increase wouldn't even be up for consideration and discussion it would have been able to
be done without anything in a public forum and so the nature of it being planned development
makes it to where we have this which I think is good discussion that we had tonight but
I think also leans into the fact that there isn't anything that would restrict it from
a DDC requirement standpoint that if this wasn't a PD this property would be able to
do this as it is and so and I also like to thank the church for stepping in to take in
some encouragement that I was going to give in this conversation here that you know nothing
in the purview this commission says hey you know we would like to review this PDA and
think that it would be an approval or put it up for approval in a vote but we would
make a requirement to have an officer make a requirement to close it for certain days
only could encourage and so thank you for stepping up before we even got to that point
to say to do it and if you want to look at it one way if you get you know more seats
and more parking spots you have more parishioners and more tithing and you can afford your officers
so that's that's one way to look at it so what that said again thank you to those from
the community that came out I know it's not maybe what you envision when you when you
purchased your home and that you were not there whenever this came through and this
this PD was originally approved but it does seem like it is the the best case scenario
for this to be approved and so therefore I make the motion to approve thank you Commissioner
Smith did you want to speak before let's find out what are you seconding okay very good
Commissioner Villarreal I wasn't seeing it on there I would like to second and second
a lot of the comments made by Vice Chair Smith I really do appreciate the community coming
out and having a real positive dialogue you don't always see that so thank you all for
coming out and speaking in favor or opposition to this and thank you to the church for you
know being proactive and taking some of those considerations you know right here from the
dais and taking that to heart we really do appreciate you all being an active member
of the community so with that I'm gonna second the approval request thank you we've got a
first and a second for approval we'll open for discussion and I know I've got a question
for Julie Commissioner if you have a question go ahead okay thank you Julie is there anything
that we can do I know you mentioned there's not a whole lot we can do about requiring
your officer there's not we can't really do that with this is there anything that we can
do about adding the gate issue to this I'm looking to Tina she might be better regarding
the gate we could have the applicant modify their plan to reflect gate obviously we want
to look at the location to make sure that that it's put in the right place and try not
to create any additional issues out onto Carnegie as we've as we've heard this evening you know
in terms of the operational aspects we could include language within the plan development
district regarding it being closed I'll be honest with you that's not my preferred thing
just from because it becomes challenging from an enforcement but I mean technically is it
something that we could put in there yes I know we have some older PDs that we have similar
type language that might have been added and if the if the church ever wanted to have the
ability to have that gate open Monday through Friday when they had a peak time service then
technically they would be in violation of their ordinance in order to be able to have
that gate open so hence why I would hope that we could rely on the church to be good faith
neighbors no pun intended but but good good effort there by the church to respect that
commitment without us having to codify language in the PD well I just had to ask because you
know we've had discussion before in a myriad of thing over the years that I've been sitting
here and and you know if it's not something that we can put down I mean it's something
like oh well we discussed that in City Hall but oh it's not written anywhere so it's it
doesn't matter if it's done or not done so but I understand what you're saying that there's
not necessarily a good way for us to be able to enforce it one of the things we will need
to confirm and I don't know Julie if you know this off the top of your head is that a fire
lane we double check with fire department because if if that is a fire lane system that is looping
through the site then we would need to work with our fire department fire marshal's office
in particular regarding how we can allow for that gate there may be some mechanisms that
we can be able to work with the church on having installed in the event that they needed
to respond to the site and use that but we've worked with developers on other projects and
I know there's some mechanisms out there but I think that's something that we could also
work with the church on between now and when this request goes to City Council and then
another question would be signage you know there's probably no ideal signage though I
mean except for sure with those closed streets I think that is absolutely something that
needs to be done by a thousand percent whether the church was here or not that's a great
idea to have that signage and I guess there's no ideal way to put a sign on the church property
because you can't very well say everybody has to turn right because what if they live
in the neighborhood they need to go left so I know that's not ideal either so I guess
to I guess paraphrase what Commissioner Smith was saying I would encourage you to continue
to educate your parishioners on all of the concerns that you heard here tonight which
are all valid I don't you know I think this is probably the best case scenario with with
what we're dealing with here of course in 2012 nobody knew that all these beautiful
homes would be built all around this beautiful church so I think everybody's working the
best they can to figure out the best way to be able to control the flow of traffic so
it does seem that the city is limited in some of these things that we can at least codify
and enforce but I would certainly encourage you to continue remembering this and educating
all of your parishioners they are to be respectful of the neighborhood that they're a part of
and I know Commissioner Pruitt had some thoughts thank you chair I appreciate the the attention
to detail there I and I want to echo the statements of of this being the most agreeable group
of concerned people that we've seen here at least in my time on the Commission so thank
you and and I really mean that right I understand that we've designed these neighborhoods such
that you you have one way out right most of the homes in this community have you know
are on a long cul-de-sac they have one road to get out of their neighborhood that that
puts people in a position where they feel very vulnerable when there's uncertainty and
concern about the convenience but also the safety and the livelihood of of their family
I understand that right I I was mentally preparing something that I will not go on at length
about if you've seen me before you will be glad but suffice it to say that my my view
on that is that we ever since 1938 when the Department of Housing and Urban Development
decided to start subsidizing mortgages there was a report that they released that recommended
a number of things intended to unify the value and income levels of neighborhoods in order
to keep undesirables and people who might be renting out and that eventually led to
the subdivision design that we have today where there's a lack of connectivity and a
lack of ways that people can get out so I hope we continue a trend toward reversing
those wrongs but when we build buildings and we build roads they're here for 40 to 400
years and so I'm sorry I wasn't here 15 years ago when this this division got got
planted I will say that while while I I understand the the desire to ensure that a gate be present
or that it be closed at certain times that is not something I could support being attached
to the PDS is I would I would rather see that off we have a wonderful group of people here
everybody's on the same page we are here in in some ways because the people who are going
to live in these homes 15 years 25 years from now sorry we are here because 10 years ago
these people weren't living in these homes and you can imagine a situation similarly
in one or two decades from now where the the inclusion or lack of a gate who's to say I
am not smart enough to know that a particular schedule for a gate in 15 years is the best
thing for the neighborhood and I think just from principles of subsidiarity and and other
reasons I prefer that this community to continue working together as well as they have shown
that they are so thank you okay that we've got a first and a second for approval I will
just thank everyone again for sharing their thoughts and opinions and for coming out and
reaching us online and and for the petition and all of that I mean staying involved and
having a voice is is absolutely imperative to working together as a community which you
are all one community so thank you very much with that we're going to go ahead and take
a roll call vote because that's what we've been doing all evening so Commissioner Pruitt
I Commissioner Smith I Commissioner Villarreal I and the chair is also an I that will pass
for zero and that will move on to City Council for final approval on January 9th it'll be
a public hearing in City Council they will have final action on this so thank you very
much we do have one more item but I'm going to go ahead and take a recess because I'm
sure you all are ready to go home so we're in a recess at 843 and as soon as the room
clears we will reconvene good evening and I will call us back to order at eight for not
forty eight forty nine p.m. after that short recess appreciate it we've got one item left
and it is our planning and zoning Commission matrix and I will give it to Tina sure thing
so a couple of items for this evening so in reviewing the matrix I believe we can satisfactorily
address the legal opinion regarding the enforceability of the DDC's general and plat specific criteria
for approval so we'll take that one off the list and as we so yes we can we can take that
one off the list otherwise I believe we refined some of the dates on the matrix which we've
been trying to make sure we keep this updated as as we've had to reschedule I think one
of the items that may have had a date update was with respect to the land use decisions
on debt and sustainability goals on the second item on there so I think that we made an update
there otherwise the matrix pretty much remains intact from that perspective so since your
last meeting we've had a couple of council meetings so I was just going to go through
my past meeting agendas just to let you know the outcome so this was from the Tuesday December
5th meeting.
So that evening we had so we had the reconsideration request associated with the specific use permit
for the multifamily development at the southwest corner of Stewart and loop 28 so that was
approved by council with a vote of four to two and so and then we also had a rezoning
from a plan development district to suburban quarter district this was the the one acre
our one point zero nine acre out parcel if you will in an area that otherwise the rest
of the PD had been developed this was Sean's case if you recall and that was they were
seeking just a reason that to straight suburban quarter and so that was approved by council
also on that same agenda we had a so we had amendments okay this was the privacy I'm sorry
like reading through the entire cap so we had the zoning amendment related to the private
cemeteries and so that ended up being approved six zero word of note on that one following
the planning and zoning commission's agenda I know commissioner LSU were still here but
rose lawn cemetery there was representatives there and given their business model in how
with their perpetual care cemetery and they had expressed some concern and so we made
one one or two refinements to the ordinance to be able to define cemetery elements so
that way it allows for existing cemeteries to be able to continue operating consistent
with the state statute in terms of cemetery type or cemetery elements that would not trigger
the specific use permit so if you recall we were making them conforming by acknowledging
their existence and but if they ever wanted to expand it would trigger the specific use
permit requirement so there was some concern regarding you know items that are typically
customary on cemeteries and being able to provide for those elements without necessarily
triggering the specific use permit so we felt like that was a minor change to the ordinance
nothing significant that would have required that bring brought back to the planning and
zoning commission so but just wanted to share that with you we also had another zoning change
request that evening on the agenda to rezone property from general office to a mixed use
regional 19 and a half acres of land this is at the northwest corner Spencer and in
Bridges Street this was Julie's case this was one that we knew that we would need to
come back and do when we did all of the updates earlier this year with our reasonable reasonable
combinations group homes community homes at all we knew that we were making this property
non-conforming as a result of those changes and so we initiated a zoning change so that
we could get them back into a conforming status so that was also approved by City Council
in addition so then on the Tuesday December 12th agenda we had one item on that agenda
and that I wanted to bring to your attention it is an annexation request for about roughly
7.25 acres located about 200 feet north of McKinney Street and about 1,100 feet east
of Trinity Road we anticipate we'll be receiving a future zoning case on that so that that
annexation was actually complete last night council did approve that and so they are anticipating
developing that property for townhomes and we'll need a zoning change in order to be
able to establish a permanent zoning classification on that property so I would anticipate that
coming forth also on the agenda wanted our last night's agenda just wanted to bring to
your attention so in case you were reviewing these in light of changes in the state statute
earlier this year coming out the 88th legislative session as you are aware of from past conversations
that we've had with legislative updates there was a bill that was passed that allows for
property owners within the ETJ to petition to remove themselves within the ETJ and so
we had 12 items on council's agenda last night on the consent agenda those items were recommended
for denial and council did deny those those requests part of that is due to the city being
involved in a lawsuit with other communities so hence our action on that but otherwise
that is that takes care of all the action that we've had on council's agenda since we
last met so happy to answer any questions you may have great thank you questions or
additions to the matrix real quick just if possible could we have the number of times
something's already been reconsidered listed for those items of individual consideration
for any reconsideration requests coming before us would that be possible sure thing is there
a particular time frame that you're wanting me to look back towards like no I mean I mean
going forward Oh being advised if something's been approved for reconsideration so that
you're aware of right and how many times because I know that the rules been changed and they
can apply for reconsideration as many times are you talking about um extension request
extension yeah I'm sorry I'm tired yeah that's exactly what I meant I apologize yes extension
request so maybe having that part of the backup you mean exactly just saying that this is
the second request or the third or what have you right okay yes we can we can include that
in the backup apologies for the confusion that's all right uh Commissioner Smith something
that was brought up in that last that last the uh the uh public hearing case we had what
is our regulation on development uh initiated parks and pools and amenities like that for
parking uh I think there was an offhanded comment that just got me thinking about the
fact that that park that's there that's in that development that we saw isn't a city
of Denton Park um and neither is the pool obviously uh what is our requirements from
a development code standpoint for requiring parking for neighborhood amenities and something
like this while small and I know it's not big this doesn't have to be a true blue work
session piece but do we have something in the development code for parking for neighborhood
amenities what is that amount what triggers that that's something that I've never we've
never seen never had to see but I could see something like in that neighborhood specifically
a park that's along a main thoroughfare one of the two main thoroughfares get in and out
of that neighborhood that has no parking therefore it's forcing people to park on a thirty three
and a quarter wide street which seems unsafe of us as a city from not having some sort
of standard like that in our development code tell you what um since we're not posted for
it I'd be more than happy to bring that back and and we could do I mean I think we could
do just a quick work session briefing for you that's what we're talking about in the matrix
Tina that's right so absolutely but yeah we could bring that back and I think that might
be something that we could probably put on your agenda um sooner than later I think that
would be a quick education and we can talk about also how we work with the development
community on where they cite those um because um as part of our review we try to take that
in consideration in influencing that I can't speak to the past but I know we've had some
conversations here on some other projects more recently so we can address that as part
of that conversation great anything else for the matrix any concluding items okay um well
I will just say uh welcome again to Commissioner Thaggard thank you for volunteering your time
with us um and I will say happy holidays to everybody because we will not meet again until
the new year so hope everyone enjoys everything this season has to offer and with that I thank
everyone for their time and we'll adjourn at 8 58 p.m.