So good evening. My name is Tina Fergens. I'm the Deputy Director of Development Services.
I'm going to call our Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting to order at 534 p.m.
So after determining, let's see, I've determined that a quorum is present.
So we will address item number one on our agenda, which is the U.S. and Texas Pledge of Allegiance.
Before we do that, though, I just wanted to let everyone know that the microphones that we're using are the white ones that are hanging from the ceiling.
So if you could just please make sure you project and speak up because this meeting is being recorded as well.
The black microphones at your table are not being used this evening.
So with that, let's go ahead and stand up and we'll do the pledge to the United States flag.
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.
The Texas flag.
Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one and indivisible.
Okay, our first order of business this evening will be to item 2A, which will be to elect an acting chair for this evening's meeting.
Following the vote for a meeting chair, the chair will then direct the remainder of the meeting using the script that we have provided.
And whomever is elected to serve as chair, I would ask them that you come and sit here in the middle, bring your name tags with you if you don't mind.
So that being said, is there a nomination for someone to serve as the chair of the meeting this evening?
I would nominate Lauren Fisher.
Thanks, Michael.
I accept the nomination.
Okay, so I have a motion by board member Michael Redwine. Is there a second?
Okay, all in favor, raise your right hand in favor of the motion.
I guess I should raise my right hand.
You said you were going to help me with scripts.
Yes.
Congratulations, Lauren.
It always says that it's a promotion.
It's very important.
Okay.
I think she makes triple what she does.
Okay, I thought it was double.
She has double.
Exactly.
Excellent.
The speaker cards to us.
Sounds great.
Okay, good evening, everyone.
My name is Lauren Ames Fisher.
I am serving as chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment at the City of Denton for this evening's meeting.
Prior to commencing our hearings, I would like to review our meeting format for the benefit of those in attendance.
The board consists of seven regular members and three alternates.
The members of the Zoning Board of Adjustment are residents of the City of Denton.
We serve voluntarily and have been appointed to our positions by the City Council.
It takes six votes to reverse or modify any determination of an administrative official on appeal.
Citizens wishing to participate may submit a white card to indicate their position on an item.
Citizens may also make virtual comments using the e-comment module made available when the agenda was posted online.
Similar to when a citizen submits a white card to indicate their position on an item,
the e-comments will be sent directly to members of the Zoning Board of Adjustment and recorded by the secretary.
Comments may be submitted up until the start of the meeting, at which time the ability to make an e-comment will be closed.
Citizens wishing to speak may submit a blue card.
All speakers are to state their name and address for the record.
In consideration of other speakers, please keep your comments to four minutes unless otherwise specified by the chair and only provide information relevant to our agenda items.
We will now commence with our regularly scheduled agenda.
Item 2B is ZBA 23-010.
Consider the approval of the November 27, 2023 minutes.
Each member of the board has been provided a copy of these minutes.
Are there any corrections, additions, or deletions to those minutes?
Hearing none, the chair will entertain a motion on Item 2B.
I motion.
I motion to approve.
I second.
Having received a motion and a second, is there further discussion from the members?
There being no further discussion, please vote on the motion.
All in favor, raise your right hand.
One, two, three, four, five, six in favor and none opposed, zero abstain.
The minutes are approved.
Item number 3A is AA 23-0003A.
Hold a public hearing and consider an appeal of an administrative decision regarding the use determination of high impact manufacturing use for CUA pools located at 2717 North Elm Street.
The approximately 0.20 acre property is located on the west side of North Elm Street, approximately 150 feet south of Orr Street in the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas.
Prior to opening the hearing for the appeal, I will swear in the witnesses for today's hearing.
Will all witnesses who will provide testimony at today's hearing please stand and raise your right hand.
Under penalty of perjury, do you swear or affirm that any testimony or information you provide or any statement you make before this board is complete, true, and correct to the best of your knowledge and ability?
If so, please answer, I do.
Is there any witness who was unable or unwilling to take this oath?
The matter before the board is whether to affirm, reverse, in whole or in part, or amend or modify a decision made by the administrative official.
The decision of the administrative official is that the activities of bleach production and bulk acid storage constitutes high impact manufacturing.
And such use is not permitted in the property's MN mixed use neighborhood zoning.
A vote of at least six members of the board is required to reverse this administrative decision.
In order to ensure an orderly meeting, the first hearing procedure will be as follows.
No person shall speak unless they are recognized by the chair to speak, and then shall only speak from the podium. First, the city's presentation and questions from the board.
Second, the, can we just let him go or go through all of them? If you want to go through all of them, you can, just to help. Sure, so to help everyone do the flow. First, we'll hear the city's presentation and questions from the board. Next, the appellant applicant presentation and questions from the board.
Third, we'll hear the city's rebuttal and any follow-up board questions. Fourth, the appellant's opportunity for rebuttal and any follow-up to board questions.
And then after parties have finished their presentation, members of the public may speak on the item.
We'll commence them with the city's presentation and questions from the board.
Good evening. I'm Scott McDonald, Director of Development Services, Chief Building Official for the City of Penn. This evening we're here to discuss the property at 2717 North Elm Street, a .2 acre site.
It is zoned mixed-use neighborhood. It is pretty much surrounded by R3 residential. There have been multiple neighborhood complaints, which began July 25th, 2023, regarding the hazardous material storage and bleach odors.
There was an incident on October 7th, 2023, a chlorine gas leak from a bleach production system. Fire and police attempted to evacuate 29 residents, which were in a 500 foot radius of that property.
They observed a 50 parts per million chlorine gas measurement on site. The incident led to a fire inspection, which was conducted on October 9th, 2023. Staff observed the following.
A tank intended for bulk storage of mirage acid bleach production system, and based upon the inspections, the lease bleach production began mid-August of 2023, and bulk storage began between July and October inspections.
In addition to being shut down for the land use, a certificate of occupancy update would be required. They were told they needed electrical permits for the machinery, which was not properly wired.
The existing certificate of occupancy for this structure is a office and warehouse. It is classified as a B-use and S1 storage. The customer space is in the front side of the building, and the back side of the building is storage of materials and service.
The CO was issued in 2021.
The determination on October 27th was that the acid storage limitation and land use being high impact manufacturing. It is not permitted in the MN district.
As you see highlighted in the table in red, you will see the mixed use and high, our manufacturing high impact. When you bisect those two lines, you'll see that there is no, there is no indication it is allowed in HI with a specific use permit.
Following the October 9th inspection, in part of this determination, staff asked for more information about the change in operation to process a new certificate of occupancy.
The site plan given showed significant part of the building a lot dedicated to the bleach production and the chemical storage. Again, the high impact manufacturing use is only permitted in the HI with an SUP.
The appeal, which was submitted on November 16th, 2023 has two independent parts. The first part is the acid storage, which was heard by the Health and Human Standards Commission regarding the fire code.
The outcome, the fire marshal's decision, acid storage is limited to 2,000 gallons under the IFC, was affirmed by Habsco with a vote of 5 to 2. This evening, we're discussing land use.
Again, the land use, the Zoning Board of Adjustment will confirm or reverse the Director's determination that the land is high impact manufacturing due to the bleach production and bulk acid storage.
That concludes my presentation and Haley will discuss the details.
Good evening Chair, members of the Board. Haley Zagorski, Assistant Planning Director.
So I'll now walk you through the staff's process and our thoughts as we went through this and made this land use determination.
So I wanted to start by showing you all the definition for high impact manufacturing as it's presented in the development code.
The parts in red are things that we found particularly applicable to the case before you this evening.
That includes uses that have hazardous inputs or create hazardous byproducts, things that create potentially hazardous impacts to the surrounding area or the environment.
And then the definition goes on, you'll see, to give a very broad list of activities that could fall within this.
One of those that we again found most applicable to this was the bulk storage of acid being specifically listed as an example in this definition.
I did want to point out in case the question came up, the DDC does not define what bulk storage is.
But subchapter 9 does refer users to then look at the broadly accepted definition of that. So going to Merriam-Webster, you'll see on the screen there that bulk is defined as something being in large quantities or not divided into separate units.
So you'll see as we go through this that that is something to keep in mind when we're looking at what's occurring on the site.
So when a use is not specifically called out in the table of allowed uses in the DDC, there are two provisions that the director is supposed to review.
In this case, bleach production and bulk storage of acid were not specific line items in our use table. We did go through this thought process in making our determination.
The first of those things is whether or not the use would have impacts on surrounding properties that can include things such as processing, storage, the general operations of the site, or nuisances that could be generated by it.
In this case, as Scott mentioned, since that CEO was approved in 2021, the appellant has added or proposed to add uses on site that were not consistent with the office warehouse use and that are directly in alignment with our definition for high impact manufacturing.
So first, the bleach production that is a chemical manufacturing process. You can read how that occurs in the applicant's narrative that was provided to you all with their appeal.
And we did have evidence from the chlorine gas leak that occurred in early October of their being potentially hazardous outputs from that process.
As Scott noted, the parts per million of chlorine coming from the machine that evening when our fire personnel arrived on site was 50 parts per million.
That's five times the limit that is determined to be immediately dangerous to life and health.
The second activity that's been proposed on site is the bulk storage of hazardous materials, specifically the muriatic or hydrochloric acid.
As Scott mentioned, they did appeal the determination by the fire marshal as to how much acid could be stored on site under the fire code.
The board did agree that the 2000 gallon limit in the IFC was appropriate for this site based on their occupancy class, but I do want you to keep in mind that based on how bulk is defined and how that use is listed in the definition of high impact manufacturing, that even 2000 gallons stored in a single tank on site would be a bulk storage of acid.
And then finally, we did also find that there are impacts to surrounding properties that have been noted in the complaints that were provided to all your backup that includes the odor, the leach odors and fumes coming from the site, as well as the risk of health hazards that could be seen again with that leak that occurred.
And just reminding you all those surrounding uses are predominantly residential.
The second factor that the director is supposed to review in making a use determination is whether the imposition of any use specific standards will be needed to mitigate the impacts of the proposed use.
So again, with this being high impact manufacturing use, as Scott showed you and as you can see on the screen here, that use is only permitted with a specific use permit in our heavy industrial zoning district.
That zoning district is predominantly located on the west side of the city around the airport.
It's away from any of those more sensitive land uses such as residential for the very purpose and intent that the uses allowed there are very intense and could have significant impacts on surrounding users.
So for that reason, the SUP is in place because that then allows council by ordinance to impose appropriate conditions on a use that would be necessary to mitigate those impacts based on the specific activities occurring on site and the context of that site.
In this case, staff determined that use specific standards would simply be insufficient to mitigate the potential risk from the site given its context and that it does not have appropriate zoning.
Instead, the determination was made that the high impact manufacturing use needed to cease on site, but that the appellant could continue using the site as they were originally permitted with their CO for the office and storage uses.
So the board is charged within an appeal with considering three different factors in making your decision. So I'll walk you through each one of those now.
The first of those three things are the general criteria that are provided in DDC section 2.4.5E. There are 13 criteria if you look at this section of the code.
Although the code says that those are applicable to all applications, if you read through them, you'll find the vast majority of them are site design specific.
So we determined that they were not necessarily germane in this case to a land use appeal. However, there are two of them that are pertinent to this case.
The first being consistency with the comprehensive plan, which in this case, if you look at our future land use map, it is designated as an area for mixed use neighborhood.
That's encouraged to have a variety of housing types, a mixture of neighborhoods serving commercial uses such as small scale retail and office type uses.
Also applicable in this case is the consistency with the intent and purpose of the underlying zoning.
So as Scott mentioned, the site does have mixed use neighborhood zoning that's directly consistent with the comprehensive plan.
And that zoning district is intended to create those vibrant pedestrian environments where people can live, work, and play all in one area and walk to the uses that would serve them on a day to day basis.
So in this case, we determined that the request to permit high impact manufacturing would subvert the intent of that MN zoning district and would also not be consistent with the comprehensive plan's guidance for this area.
Second, the board is supposed to consider the facts as stated in the application and presented before you today.
So both the site plan that Scott showed earlier that was submitted as part of that revised CEO process we were trying to work with the applicant on and the appeal letter that were submitted to you
described that bleach production and bulk acid storage are proposed to be significant aspects of the site in terms of the actual area of land that's taken up by those uses and their business operations.
The city has demonstrated through your backup materials and hopefully in this presentation today that the bulk acid storage is specifically listed as an example of high impact manufacturing and the Denton Development Code's definition for that use.
And the city's also demonstrated that bleach production does have the potential to create hazardous byproducts and hazards impacts on the surroundings as evidenced by the incident that occurred in October in the fire inspection reports provided to you all.
Third, the board is to consider the requirements and intent of the applicable standards of the DDC compared to the decision that's being appealed.
In this instance, we believe the determination is consistent with the Development Code's definition for high impact manufacturing. It upholds the DDC's requirements that this use be done on parcels that have appropriate heavy industrial zoning and have gone through the scrutiny of a specific use permit process.
And as noted, this determination would not prevent the appellant from continuing with the uses that they have a CEO for being office and accessory storage.
So to summarize, the city's determination is consistent with the applicable general criteria since it respects the comp plan and the intent of the MN zoning by prohibiting high impact manufacturing in a residential area.
The city has demonstrated that bleach production and bulk storage are directly aligned with our definition for high impact manufacturing.
And we've shown that this determination is consistent with the DDC as it respects the intent of the MN zoning and the city's comprehensive plan.
I do want to stress to you all that this determination was not issued lightly. The city does not seek to limit small business activities with our zoning on a regular basis, but in this case, the sequence of events that occurred prompted us for the need to make a determination because there was clearly activity occurring on site that caused risk to the neighbors and surrounding properties.
So in this case, we did make this determination, we did lay out the facts before you all to demonstrate that this is in fact the use that we determined it would be.
And with that, I will leave you all with the four options that are available before you today. And I believe your liaison can walk you through these later if further explanation is needed. Thank you.
So it's the staff liaison to the board this evening. So there are four options that are associated for the commission or the board to take into consideration.
The first one is you have the ability to affirm the director's decision or interpretation that the like the land use is high impact manufacturing.
This thereby requires the beach bleach production use and bulk storage of acid to be removed from the site. If you are to affirm the director's decision.
The second option that the board has before them is to reverse the director's decision or interpretation in whole or in part.
This would allow the bleach production use and bulk storage of acid to continue on the site.
It's also important that the board understand that if you do reverse the director's decision as it relates to this request, whether in whole or in part, that that does have implications citywide because there are many properties that have zoning.
So if you were determined that this use was incorrectly applied by the director, then then that has implications where that use would be permitted in all properties with that district. So just want to make sure that the board understands that that option.
Similarly, the third option is to amend or modify the director's decision or interpretation regarding the land use and activities.
Again, this has implications on the district as well, depending upon your decision. So it thereby determines that the land use is some other use as allowed for in the DDC.
And when we say some other land use, that would be that if the board believed that this use was another use that is listed within our schedule of permitted uses, that that would be the use that you would cite as provided for in our land use tables.
And then the fourth option is to attach conditions of approval to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the city.
This option is not germane to the subject land use determination. Any conditions associated with this land use would be more appropriate if a specific use permit were being sought for this use on the property and presuming if that property had heavy industrial zoning, given that this property is currently zoned MN for the mixed use neighborhood. That's why this fourth option is also not germane and available.
So again, the board has options one, two and three available for you this evening. When we get to the second portion of our second meeting this evening, after we've done the public hearing component.
Thank you.
Next, next the appellant or applicant presentation and questions from the board.
Are we doing questions for presentation, or we're going to do that after this.
Oh, it's up to it's up to the chair, how you want to conduct that if you have questions of the witnesses that were just up there, you can allow that.
Are there any questions or matters of fact or clarification from the board for the city's presentation.
We can go ahead and entertain those now if you don't mind sorry yeah well well Scott is still up there.
All right, I would like to recognize a member of red line. So I think just some clarifying things of the high impact is what's really been decided here right so regardless of, I guess it's mixed mixed use is the zoning.
Right. And so, really the only determination that you guys are looking for either affirmation or change would be, we don't agree that it's been designated as high impact, is that the main question here.
That is correct. We've made a determination, and they are appealing that determination to you this body.
So, it's been, it's been, it's high impact is according to this, the question I had around the acid storage seems like it's really the one that's maybe there's a little bit more gray area on bulk, is that fair to say, can, could they store acid there, if it were at a certain level or certain amount.
At a certain amount. Yes, the quantities that they're doing. No, and that was that was confirmed through the previous meeting that we had with have scope.
Yeah, that's the first. Yes.
I think that clears it.
Yes, I do have one, it's regarding the three options that were laid out.
Based on. Let me see. Yes. So, production, bleach production use does that mean like the production of bleach or the usage of production of.
Okay, behind that. Okay.
Cool. I just wanted that clarified.
Any other questions from the board.
Thank you. Thank you.
Next, thank you for your patience. The appellant, the appellant and applicant presentation and questions from the board. The appellant party will present testimony, evidence and arguments to support the appeal with potential questions of the appellant from the board at the conclusion of the
applicant's presentation. Consistent with City Council rules of procedure, the board shall allow up to 10 minutes per speaker for presentation, with a total of no more than 20 minutes for all speakers from a single party.
Good evening, everybody. My name is Juan Franco or Juan Carlos. I'm one of the co founders of cool pools. And today we're here appealing the decision from the city to shut up to shut down our beach production machine in our facility.
So, a little background about us. We are both local members of the community. We've been here for a long time. Graduated from the high school myself, UNT, met my wife at UNT, same thing with him. He's actually my brother.
But, again, he graduated from Denton High, went to UNT, we've been here for a long time. So we are small business owners, and we're just trying to make it happen.
And right now we feel like the city has been making it difficult for us, unfortunately, but we do have some reason behind their decisions.
So, first of all, we did ask for permission from the city. I called the city back in January to tell them that we were looking into purchasing a beach production machine.
I spoke with some, at least two or three people over the phone. Only one of them told me that I needed to submit some application. It was the people from the wastewater.
I submitted this form back in January. This was before we purchased the machine. And they were supposed to come and do a site inspection. I don't know if that ever got done, but since I never heard back, I assumed we were all good to go.
We did spend about $200,000 on this machine. It's not a small investment. We actually have a loan on it, but we still have to pay.
As of right now, we don't have a place to put it. The machine has been off for about a couple of months now. So just bear that in mind. If we don't produce our own beach, we've got to buy it.
The main thing here is the definition of what the city is saying, that we are a high-impact manufacturing. This is the definition that I took from the city code, from what the city considers high-impact manufacturing.
We deny that definition, which in fact, if we're not considered high-impact manufacturing, then we should be able to operate in our current zone. So first of all is the use of hazardous inputs.
The machine uses water, electricity, and salt to produce bleach. None of those things are considered hazardous inputs. The machine only produces bleach, no acid. There's no acid involved in the whole production process.
I'm not sure why there's talks about bulk asset storage. The asset storage that we have, I will explain in a little bit, is for our pool business. We are a swimming pool business. We use it to balance pH pool.
So that's one thing. The other one is manufacturing, assembly, fabrication, and treatment of processes that create potentially hazardous impact on the environment and surrounding areas.
The only byproduct that the machine produces that is not used is hydrogen, which is then diluted with air and blown out of the facility.
We've had an incident that is not supposed to happen, and we took measures to make sure that it never happens again, which we did communicate with the city about the proposed changes, and the city was okay with those proposed changes.
But then after that is when they decided to determine this high impact. And then back to the asset manufacturer and bulk storage. First of all, we're not manufacturing asset. Never have we said that we are, and we're not doing it.
And we have also never stored asset in bulk. The city has made, in the presentation before this, multiple references to the fact that we are storing bulk asset, which we are not.
We buy right now asset in barrels, $55 barrels, and they come in two or three of them, a few, and then we use that for our customers. Remember, we service pools.
The main chemical used for swimming pool maintenance is bleach. The second one is asset. And the asset is the common thing, you can go buy it at Walmart, you can buy it at Lowe's, they sell it in bottles, gallon bottles.
We buy it, we don't have it in bulk, we never have. We were planning on doing that before this, but then last week we were denied our ability to store more than 2,000 gallons, which is what we were trying to do.
But again, we were never storing bulk storage on this property. So this is our decision, or our reasoning why we don't think that this is our machine, or what we're doing in there is considered high impact manufacturing.
The second thing is there was a city insinuated that we are using most of the building for the production of bleach, which again is not true. As you can see, this is why it's submitted to the city, and they also showed it in their previous slides.
The machine is right here. It's 10 feet by 40 feet in the back of the building. The building is 4,000 square feet. The machine takes 400 square feet. This is the storage that we have for the asset, which I crossed out because that was our plan to store asset, which was again denied.
They shouldn't be using that as a reason to say that we are storing asset, which we never have done. We were planning on it, but they shut us down on that.
But this is our whole building. You can see here this is the storage for regular pool equipment that you will find in any pool service company, office, break room, and then the second floor is just storage that we have for parts and things, and then there's bathrooms in the second floor, and then another one in the first floor.
So there's no -- most of this land is not -- most of our building is not used for manufacturing bleach, because as you can see here, they say that one of the reasons is we're using more than 50% of our building square footage in bleach production, which as I just already said is 400, which is 10% of the building, not 50%.
Let's see. Our primary use is for office and space and warehouse for our business, for swimming pool servicing. Most of the building is not used for bleach production, is what I was trying to get at.
Again, asset bulk storage, we never store asset in bulk in the facility, so again, no reason to consider us high-impact manufacturing. It's just, you know, asset is the chemical that we use to -- we've been using it since 2020 on site, and we use it for our customers to lower the pH in the water.
So another thing I want to point out is one of the things the city did mention that they would like us to do, if you guys do decide to maintain the machine down, is the fact that the removal -- so the removal is going to cost us more money.
If we could find a way to not have to physically remove the whole machine out of the building, if you guys decide to -- because we don't have a place -- if you guys decide to say no, we can use it, it's $200,000 down the road. We've got no other place to put this machine.
So it's just going to stay there until maybe in the future we find a use, but if we could at least keep it there so that way we can save the -- probably $5,000 that it would have cost us just to move it out of that building.
And with that, my presentation is over. I appreciate your time, and I hope I can answer all your questions. Do you have anything to say?
One clarification. So I just want to bring something up.
Oh, sorry. Can you say your name and your address for the record?
Juan M. Franco. Address, home address?
Yeah.
345-1-4-8-100-6. So one point is, you know, we had an incident. It shouldn't happen. I agree with that, right? But there's two points for the incident that I just want to clarify, right?
The first is we don't classify operations based on things that are not supposed to happen, right? We have requirements and safety measures.
For example, indoor pools -- you can look it up. I can find examples for you.
If the pH of the pool goes too low, the cloning in the water will come out, and there's many cases where people get sick from that cloning, right?
And it will go up -- actually, what happened that day in the machine, it wasn't nothing with the machine that broke.
It was the pH where the salt is, right, went lower than it should be, right? And the cloning, just like in any indoor pool, went up.
Now, they keep saying 50 parts per minute. We have the machine records, like, if it wouldn't go anywhere above 10, it would have shut down the machine, and they had to actually manually shut the machine down.
So, meaning that on our sensors that we have there, it never went above 10, right?
Now, even that, they never mentioned that they went around the building every hour for three hours, and there was zero chlorine outside -- gas chlorine -- outside of the building.
Because we have put the building in a way where the material wouldn't leave the building. You know what I mean? Anything in there doesn't go outside.
And it's hard to believe that it was 50 parts per million. And three hours later, when I go to the building, there's not even a smell of chlorine in that building.
They opened the building at 7 a.m., and told us we could go right back in. They double-checked everything, and it was fine.
Our machine, when it had an alarm, it goes at 5 parts per million, right? It starts going on. That's what the neighbors heard, right?
And then it shuts the machine at 10. It never got to shutting the machine down. So, I mean, I don't want to question what they have.
Maybe the sensor they had, or anything like that. So that's why I didn't want to bring it, you know, to say that they're wrong or right.
What I'm trying to say is, you cannot -- I mean, the way this country cannot run in a way, right, where you're assuming what's the worst that could happen in any business, and say that that would happen.
You don't have to be able to sell anything for the plants that could blow up. You know, the chlorine is explosive.
You mix chlorine with acid, right? It will just -- the gas will come out. We don't shut down every single home depot that has both of them next to each other, right?
So, I'm just trying to say -- they're trying to say that we are high-impact, based on a possible incident that could happen, right?
They're saying you have to follow procedures, you know, that you have to -- what we proposed to the city was, we wanted to put two sensors, redundant, right?
And if the sensor goes one part per minute, the whole machine gets shut down. One part per minute. No five, no 10, no 50.
One would shut the whole machine down, automatically. And, you know, that was good at some point, and then it was better after, you know, they went back and did whatever they wanted to do.
So, as of now, we're getting called in. We had five fire trucks in front of a building for three hours.
Because a cup of chlorine -- one of the trucks, the guys -- one of the technicians was coming back to the office, right?
And they had two safety, you know, two keys to the -- in the hose for the chlorine. He forgot to close one of them, not the main one, right?
Whatever was in that hose dripping the truck, they never called the firefighters. Four fire trucks, they saw it was a bottle this big of chlorine, right?
Four fire trucks for three hours, they called, like, another agency to come and test the air.
Like, we got called a call for the fire department, too, just because we're filling our chlorine, which we've been doing for years.
So now everything we do, we get fire marshals there, we get everybody, you know, to stop our business.
And they go and they block everything, you know, our guys come and come in and out. It's just a big hassle for us, like, you know.
So, just to keep in mind, you know, that it's become, you know, an overreaction, I think, in a lot of sense, you know.
So, the machine is off, and they know. And we still get in the fire department there every day, you know, forever. So, yeah. Thank you.
Any questions?
Thanks for the presentation. I guess a couple questions. So, from your point of view,
I guess you said you reached out to the city about some, I guess, of some permit usage, right?
Three months before we even purchased the machine. So, I guess my question would be, you all reached out for a use, for a specific use permit, right?
To create bleach? So, this is what happened. We wanted to know if it was okay, you know, Sony, for us to use, to buy a bleach machine.
And we explained the process to them over the phone and stuff. And they said, well, is there any process that we should follow to get the city pre-approved before we buy?
Well, we checked everything. I mean, since it's not regular, you know, you're not doing anything. Because you saw the input and outputs, right?
They're saying all you have is bleach, and you're putting in salt, electricity, and water. So, you know, there's nothing in the code that says you have anything to ask for permission for that.
So, that's what it told us over the phone, and then we said, you know, they say water wastes, just in case you're wasting energy. For that, you need to get a permit.
So, we did that. But the thing is, you know, it would have been nice if they would have taken all the energy we're taking today before we spent $200,000.
And, you know, it's just a lot of money for a small business. I mean, I don't know if, you know, that's around small business, but it is a lot of money for a small business.
And it was very careless, you know, to not even check anything for us.
So, this is the form. So, that day I called the city. It's only one. The wastewater is the only one that said that we needed to fill this form. And here you can see we'll use salt, water, electricity to produce sodium hypochlorite bleach.
It tells you the concentration that we can produce it at, and then the amount of gallons that it produces per day. This is something that I send to the city.
And the city never came back during that time when they should have come and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, maybe I have some questions, maybe no, maybe yes, whatever."
But this is the moment that the city is supposed to come and tell us yes or no. I'm not an expert in dealing with regulations with the city.
This is, again, we'll just call the city and say, "Hey, this is what we're planning on doing. What do we need?"
This is what they told me I need. I need it. I sent it in. I mean, and now, and even after the machine arrived and we installed it, the city came multiple times.
They didn't have a problem with the machine. It was working. It was fine. After that incident is when everything changed.
Then the city came back and said, "Oh, now you're zoning and high impact." That determination was happening after the incident, which, I mean, the incident is not a good thing,
but I'm saying that why would that have changed the zoning or where the machine should have been allowed, if it would have been allowed there or not since the first place?
And that's the problem that we have.
I have a question. You were talking about you don't have bulk storage, but in section C, the first question is do you have any bulk chemicals that are qualities of 55 gallons or more,
and you said you store in 55 gallons, so according to the questionnaire, that would be considered bulk storage.
Yeah, that's for bleach, not for acid. So the thing is bulk storage acid, bulk storage bleach. Yes, we've been storing bulk storage of bleach since 2020.
The city has been aware of that. This is not what we're trying to discuss here or argue about. The fact is the acid bulk storage, which we were planning on doing,
but again, we were shut down, we were turned down by the city to do so. So we never did. Okay. Okay, so the memorandum. Yeah.
So going back over this, I guess it's an application? Yes. Okay, so the only thing that you received and what we're told was that you needed to fill out this application for the wastewater survey.
Yes. Yes, that's what they told me at the time. I mean, I have the email, you know, from what I emailed the city official. It was nice talking to you today.
And that was in January? Yes. And you purchased the equipment when? Soon after that is when we decided to purchase it, and it arrived in like August, two months.
Okay, and you purchased it before, you purchased it after you sent that application? Yes. And you never heard from the city on whether you could use it?
Well, they were said they were going to come and do a site inspection, which I mean, it's wastewater, so they come outside and do their inspections.
I mean, we get people from the city to just come and do random inspections. One of those was it. So they did an inspection or they did not?
I did not speak with the inspector because I'm not always in the building. Okay. But I'm assuming that they did, given that, you know, he said they weren't going to come and do the inspection.
And then nothing else was heard? No phone call? You just assumed that everything was? Well, we purchased the machine. We saw it as, hey, we're buying, you know, it wasn't like we're not producing like some kind of big factory, you know,
that you need all these regulations and environmental approvals or things like that. I contacted TCEQ as well that same day, and TCEQ told me, based on the descriptions of what I told them we were getting, they said that we're good to go.
Unfortunately, that was a phone call. I never had to email TCEQ, so I don't have, you know, physical proof of that call. What is TCEQ? Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
It's like the EPA, but for the state level. Okay, so that was the state thing? Yes, the state. Not the city. No, no, I called the state and I called the city. This is from the city.
This email, this letter is for the city. The state is a different call on the same day, but they never told me they needed anything from me, so I didn't email them.
Any other questions? I recognize member Hall. Yes, I guess a clarification on the cause of the chlorine leak. So if I heard correctly, it's basically the pH levels of the salt were lowered, correct?
And I guess perhaps I misheard, but I guess what caused the salt levels to drop? So there's a system in there that feeds sodium hydroxide light into the salt tank to keep the pH high.
When the pH goes low, below eight, then the chlorine from the solution evaporates. And since that tank is inside of the building, that's where it was staying at. We had no ventilation from previous neighbor companies.
They literally shut down all the ventilations of the building so everything stays inside. That's why inside of the building, the concentration was high. But it was all contained within the building. It wasn't like a chlorine gas leak from a pipe or anything like that.
We have a tank where we have the depleted brine which has some amount of chlorine in there, but since the pH dropped, it let that chlorine out. And I guess the ventilation system would have been a way to mitigate that issue, correct?
The thing with the ventilation system which we had originally, we had complaints from neighbors. So then we decided to shut it down so that we don't... We understand that people live nearby. People live near everywhere.
Even in the industrial area near the airport, there's houses out there too. But yeah, we shut it down, the ventilation inside of the building, so that that smell wouldn't go up.
I'm going to go to your question. Since the depleted, that's depleted chlorine, right? So it's like a pool level of chlorine that you have in that water. It's not the concentration that you get out of the final product, right?
So if we would have, let's say, the fan running that we had before, if we had the fan running, obviously we wouldn't have had that concentration, but we made the decision of let's shut everything down so nothing leaves the building, and then have the sensor shut it down now. We should have lowered... We didn't know when the machine came by the fall of 10. We didn't lower that to what we were like. I mean, we actually would have reduced that by one and just shut the machine down. We don't want to run if it's chlorine anywhere.
Thank you for clarifying.
I'm sorry, I need to ask another question.
I'm recognizing member Green.
Thank you. So you shut down the ventilation system because you received complaints from neighbors?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so without the ventilation system, is that what caused the incident?
No.
Okay, so it just had nothing to do with ventilation?
No. Well, the ventilation made it so that when this incident happened, it let all the chlorine stay in the building, right, instead of, you know, going out. So it just kept it in the building because we had an exhaust fan and then another chilling that pulls air in and one pulls air out. Both of them were off.
Okay, thank you.
I recognize the member Gray.
So, with regards to your conversation with the city, I see you have been emailed with Jordan Wilson, who is in wastewater treatment. Did you reach out specifically to wastewater treatment or did you reach out to development services and were directed to wastewater treatment?
I reached out to the city in general. I mean, again, I'm not an expert in dealing with city regulations. I just called the city. I told them this is what I needed to do. They started transferring me to different people.
I couldn't recall how many people, but it was three or four people I spoke to. The only ones that told me, "Hey, I need you to fill out the survey," is this. It was that person. He sent me his email over the phone and then I called him.
I mean, I emailed him and then they sent me the form and then I filled it out and sent it in. I'm not really sure how much more. I'm not an expert in how the city regulations work. I mean, you guys can tell from just the two of us. We're not experts at this.
But I did what I thought I was supposed to do. You call your city to see what you needed. I called the state as well to see what I needed. I got the basic information that I got at that moment is when we determined we were going to buy this machine.
One of the things is we did buy this machine for economic reasons. If you guys check, the price of clothing has skyrocketed since COVID, triple the price. We did this so that we could continue to operate with a pricing that was more affordable for us.
And the machine only produces the amount of bleach that we use in-house. We're not distributors of bleach. We only do it for our customers, customers that we serve as residential and commercial properties.
It makes what we use in a summer day. 500 gallons per text, we'll use that in one day in the summer. Now it will take a little longer.
Sorry, hopefully last question. So is your main appeal that you don't believe that, you acknowledge you're creating, that you're producing bleach, right? Is your main appeal that you don't believe that is a hazardous, that's not creating something hazardous to the surrounding areas?
I don't think that it's high impact manufacturing because bleach is not considered hazardous and the ingredients used to produce it are not either. The inputs.
So if you go by the definition, it doesn't say if there's an incident or something abnormal in the process. It says if it's powered by products, normal by products, which isn't the definition.
Does that underline something? This is what the city also underlines in their presentation to point out to the specific points of why they consider us high. That's my question.
So create like that partial that says create potentially hazardous impacts, right? Is your point of view that bleach in the production couldn't do that?
Yeah, exactly what we're saying is that in a normal production of bleach that it doesn't release any harmful chemicals, you know, and it's not used in a normal production of bleach.
Now with the incident that I mentioned, right, we know we have to add more procedures to avoid it from having eventualities and the way we proposed with the city before was to shut the machine down on one part per million if that ever happens inside the building.
So one thing is after the incident, we met with the city on site and we've written a plan to move forward. So as you guys have to make changes there.
Yes, I'm just going to say now that it's a question answer time and several times now we're getting into further testimony rather answer.
Okay, thank you for the clarification. So our city attorney has just reiterate what we just heard. We can only consider information that was given during the testimony, not new information that comes up in the question and answer. Is that correct?
Well, since they've had their, their time limit to justify. So anything beyond just answering the question that's raised by the board is allowing more time to them than is allotted in the procedure. Thank you. Okay, so if I'll instruct the speakers to just keep your answers to answering just what the board asks and not reiterating back. Thank you.
Thank you. Your last communication with the city on this was that January 30th email was my first communication. Okay, so you sent them the form on January 30th.
And then what was additional communication did you have with the city after that? I mean, not before. After that communication with the city, we decided to purchase a machine. After that, they would communicate with the city when the machine arrived through complaints.
We got complaints from neighbors, and then those complaints led the city to go on site, and we continue to have more conversations with the city, even through those conversations, never told us that we have to shut down the machine.
Okay, so the the wastewater form that you that you show up that you showed up here that you submitted on January 30th. All right, that email that spoke to go back to the email that email that's right there January 30th at 1057am was that the last communication that you had with the city before the incidents that happened.
So, we got this, and then we purchased the machine. And we got it like, July, right? June, July. We started the machine. Even before we started, we started getting complaints just by putting the machine in, but you know, then they may not call the cops.
Multiple times, saying that we're making men. So you can see the level of, you know, engagement we have from the city. We got, we met, I think, everybody at the fire department. The city came multiple times. They will come randomly, take pictures, and you ask them, like, "What are you guys doing? What are those pictures for?" And they're like, "Well, I don't know. You still need to take pictures."
Okay, but between, between this, this and when you got the machine, you didn't have any additional communication with the city. They didn't come back to you with any questions.
Okay, thank you.
Any other questions from members?
Okay, then I think we move, thank you very much for your, for your time and your testimony. Next, I think we move to the city's rebuttal and any follow-up board questions we might have for the city.
City staff will be given an opportunity to make rebuttal comments that address the testimony given in the applicant's presentation. Consistent with city council's rules and procedure, the board shall allow up to two minutes per speaker for rebuttal for a total of no more than 10 minutes from all speakers at this party.
And the board may ask questions of city staff.
Good evening. I'm Kayla Zdursky, an assistant planning director. So I've got a few points here I wanted to address from the information provided to you all.
First, the documentation that was shown indicates that they applied for something to our wastewater department. They did not have documentation that that was ever approved.
Additionally, an application or communication with the wastewater department does not constitute a zoning or land use approval.
Development services received no communication or inquiries regarding proper permitting that would have been needed to install such equipment on site or any inquiries about regarding their specific occupancy and land use and the change that they were proposing on site.
Second, they did indicate that they took issue with the statement in the AIS regarding 50% of the area roughly being designated to or used for the bleach production, the storage of the inputs for the bleach machine, and the outdoor storage, bulk storage activities that were proposed.
They said that there is no requirement in the Denton Development Code that an activity take up 50% or less of a site. That was just an estimate that we provided to you all based on the plans that they provided. The activity itself is still considered high impact manufacturing.
Third, the incident that we discussed this evening is merely an example of how we know that there could be hazardous outputs or impacts from this process.
The activity itself is what's a question here, the bleach production activity, not whether it is operating safely or proper measures are in place. We would expect any industrial operation like that to be following proper industry safety standards, but it should be occurring in a zoning district that permits the use.
And then finally, and I can let some of the others speak to this, upon inspection of the site, staff did witness that the inputs to the machine were softening the pipes, which does lead us to believe that there is some level of hazard occurring with the inputs to the bleach machine.
There was bulk storage on site occurring at that time. It was a bleach. The acid was a proposed storage. And I do want to reiterate, even though the fire code allows them and Habsco affirmed they can store 2000 gallons of acid, that is still a bulk acid storage activity that would be high impact manufacturing.
I will let Scott speak next.
Scott McDonnell, Director of Development Services. Just a couple of points. First and foremost, I want to apologize for you calling the city whomever it is you call. If you called the main number, you were transferred a number of times. That's unfortunate.
I will say that the wastewater inquiry is not a land use. Don't know that you had ever gotten an approval. I have not been aware of this document until today, so I've not seen that, don't know that.
Whether that was approved or not approved, you made application to pretreatment for such a service. And I don't know the status of that. So again, my apologies for what occurred should have never occurred in such a fashion.
The hazardous byproduct speaks to the hazard that exists. So ultimately this was triggered as a number of complaints prior to that actual occurrence. The occurrence that took place was hazardous to the point where fire officials made the statement that had they walked into that facility, somebody would have died.
So again, they were hasmatted up and that's where they were at. The incident is background. That was just one element of this. That is not this case. The case is that it is a hazard. Is it a high impact? And that's what we're discussing.
This was as a result of a change of use. So we had an office and warehouse use and we're changing, we're adding manufacturing to this use. And that's the case that we're looking at and that was the decision that was made. And again, going back to high impact. Thank you.
Hi, I'm Megan Tooth, Fire Marshal. I just wanted to make sure that you know in your backup you do have the fire report from the incident that occurred on October 7th.
Do board members have any questions? They mentioned that they didn't have 2,000 gallons of acid. They only had 55 gallons. Does that matter, I guess, from the designation of the original finding that had a high impact?
Would that have changed? If you acknowledge that it wasn't 2,000 gallons of acid on site, does that change, I guess, the original assessment?
Sure. So I do not know the exact quantity of acid that they had on site at the time. What was observed was it being sort of 55 gallon drums. The issue is the proposal was to take the acid not in the drums, not in the manufactured packaging and have it trucked in and put into a tank.
Originally they were proposing 5,500 gallons. Again, that was affirmed by the Habsco that they could not store that much. It would need to be reduced to 2,000. Even at 2,000 if it is trucked in and put into a large quantity tank that would still be a bulk storage activity.
They could continue to store acid in much smaller individual manufacturer's containers on site as they had been doing prior to the change in operations.
In less than 2,000 gallons in a control area. And I think another point to this is that this case where it was bifurcated by virtue of that it had to go to two different bodies, we're still talking about the same application.
So someone can make a different application to the city for something different other than what they're doing and it may have a different outcome. But the outcome is on the basis of the application which we received.
So to clarify, the only type of manufacturing activity that is currently allowed in the zoning district is artesian manufacturing and can you please explain to us how that is different than the other types of manufacturing?
So the artesian manufacturing is truly that it's an artisan, a craftsperson who is making some sort of craft leather goods, small scale fabrication of pottery or something of that nature can fall into this land use that is being sold or they may be teaching that activity to others.
It is not an industrial scale of operation, but I do have the definitions for all of our manufacturing uses on the screen to review.
Recognize member Gray? So the city had never provided information on zoning was never asked for information on zoning as far as you guys are aware.
That is correct. We went through all of our records that we had available to us as well as the fire department records and neither development services or fire received any inquiry for approval of the activity before it occurred on site.
Next question. So there was discussion of acid on site and that being one of the factors that would push this into heavy industrial zoning.
So given that they do not intend to have their proposed tank, is that consideration still being applied for the heavy industrial usage? What I've seen online is that chlorine is not an acid but does become an acid as soon as it contacts water, which is a fairly abundant chemical.
Is that considered within what the city is saying about the acid and the heavy industrial usage or what we do with that?
Sure. So Scott mentioned the application before you will contain both parts that they were wanting to distort the acid in some form and that they were considering to continue increasing leach on site. So we evaluated this based on both of those criteria.
The incident being just one example of how city staff cannot evaluate every eventuality or thing that could occur with a production activity. We're not experts in that. That's the reason those uses are limited to zoning districts that are away from sensitive uses like neighborhoods in our industrial areas.
Thank you.
It's in regards to perhaps, I guess, when they called into City Hall to see if they could get the machine installed in the first place. Obviously City Hall takes in lots of calls all the time and there's a lot of decisions that need to be made about where people need to go.
And I guess clearly in this case, it looks like that they were directed to incorrect channels and receive incorrect forms needed to see if they can get the permit needed. How can we ensure that, so something like an incident like this doesn't happen again, how can we ensure that they're directed to proper channels?
Also, I'm not sure who the phone call went to when they said they called the city. Yeah, of course, of course. In all likelihood, they did need some level of approval from our industrial pretreatment division because of the industrial operation.
It is unfortunate that that didn't make its way to development services or for some of the business, I will say, more often than not, any inquiry that comes to the city gets forwarded to our department because people don't know what to do with it and they think that's a great place to start because they know a little bit of everything.
So in this case, I'm not sure how we could have prevented that. Scott may have more to add.
I don't know how we could have prevented that because I don't know where it went, but I can tell you that I do regularly meet with the other city directors and we'll have the conversation about this particular incident that we have to ensure that staff that might be answering a question that could have a land use impact that those are forwarded to us.
Okay, excellent. Thank you. Okay, excellent. Then we move into our appellant opportunity for rebuttal and any follow up board questions so the appellant party is given an opportunity to make any rebuttal comments that address the follow up statements made by the city.
Consistent with city council's rules of procedure, the board shall allow to two minutes per speaker for rebuttal with total of no more than 10 minutes from all speakers of the party. At the conclusion of the rebuttal testimony, the board may ask questions of the applicant.
Hello. So a couple of points. I just want to, you know, so yes, maybe the city did not have all the information because we didn't go to the right channels when I originally approached the city back in January, but the city was fully aware of the machine when we initially started it and for two months that we run the machine, the city was there 15 to 20 times.
The city was fully aware of what was happening from fire, police, building code, everybody. Everybody was aware. We're kind of famous in the city right now, but it's fine.
So, but during those two months, they never told us, oh, you guys are in the wrong place. This only came up. Yes, objection. I believe this is not related to our rebuttal remarks.
Can I ask the city attorney for some guidance here on how limited the response needs to be to the rebuttal?
I think it's within reason. If it's a reasonable response to what was stated by the city, then it's allowable. And I would just say, if in your judgment, it's a reasonable response.
Okay, if we can just confine the conversation to the back and forth process.
Well, that's what I was trying to do. So we did have a couple months, the machine was running and the city was fully aware of it and we never were told to shut it down. So there was communication. What I'm trying to prove is they were aware of the machine well before the incident, and they never said that we had to shut it down.
And then the other point again, asset, we never stored and we're not planning on storing bulk asset. So we're missing two things. We're not planning on storing bulk asset. We're just stocking 35,000 trucks. We've always done that differently with asset.
Any questions from the board?
I just want to read a point on these comments, right? It's very easy for somebody that's not running a small business with a tight budget to come and say, I'm sorry, we didn't go to the right channel, say we lost $200,000. If the city should just say, I'm sorry, they should have a procedure in place and a phone number you call, we shouldn't know which department to call. You call the main number, the city number, and they should be trained enough to send you to the right department so you don't lose $200,000.
That's just, you know, sorry doesn't cut it to me. I'm just putting that on that comment.
Okay. After the parties have finished their presentation, members of the public may speak on the item.
Members not listed on the application as part of the appellant applicant party or did not already speak as part of the appellant's case or rebuttal may provide comments with potential speed questions of speakers from the board.
Consistent with city council's rules of procedure, the board will allow up to four minutes per speaker, but this may be limited by the board chair to three minutes if numerous speakers desire to comment on an item to give as many individuals as possible the ability to speak on the item.
Okay, excellent. It does look like we have three individuals who have registered to speak for this evening. I will call you up one by one and you can give your testimony.
At first I'd like to call Beatrice Robinson. If you don't mind coming up, telling us your full name and your address.
Yes, of course. Yes, my name is Beatrice Robinson. I live at 408 Northridge.
So, my name is Beatrice. I live in this neighborhood on Northridge Street, just a street away from this whole company. I've been a resident of Denton on and off since 2009 when I moved to UNT.
Along with my husband, I live with my two children, one and three, and when my son was born, about three years ago, my elderly parents and my sister and brother-in-law who also went to UNT decided to move to Denton with us.
To do my parents, Alfred, who's 78 and currently recovering from heart surgery, and my mother Sue, 68, live directly behind this whole company, specifically directly behind this bleach manufacturing machine.
When you saw the picture, they are literally the property right behind where that machine is.
Even if this machine is not the majority of this company or their building that they're using, it is the closest and most dangerous aspect that affects my family.
We're producing the bleach. There is an exhaust system that used to, I guess, used to blow into our family's yard, backyard, and into our neighborhood.
As you can imagine, with my parents being so close, my children regularly visit them. They play in the yard, they run around, we walk, ride bikes, all of those things.
As a result, I fear that my children, as well as my parents, may have been exposed to this toxic chemical.
When deciding where to live and raise my children, the most important factor was a safe and cared community for my children to grow and thrive.
We also, of course, wanted to ensure that my elderly parents could retire and live out their older years around my children and just thrive in this beautiful community.
From attending UNT to living in Denton and working at multiple nonprofits within this community, I knew my children and parents would be safe.
However, these recent events of toxic chemical exposure to my family had challenged my sense of safety in this community.
Whether these toxic chemicals were exposed once, multiple times, meant to have been exposed, will for sure be exposed in the future.
I, as a mother or daughter, have fear that my children and my parents will be exposed to this again, and I doubt that it won't happen again.
Just because it happened once and you say it's not going to happen doesn't mean that me as a mother can feel safe that it's not going to happen again.
Coming from a family of entrepreneurs and being a small business owner myself, I understand the plight of small business owners.
I also come from a family of an immigrant family.
Our mother came to this country 40 years ago to start a small business and to create a life for me and my sister where we can thrive and have children in this community.
I know of multiple neighbors who also are small business owners, also have young families, multiple families who have their grandparents living across from the children as well, right within where this company is.
We also know the dangers and fears that come with raising a family and caring for elderly parents. At the heart of the issue is safety.
Each and every individual has a right to safety in their community and especially in their home.
Just as these men ask for the right to grow their business, we ask that our children and families have the right to be safe, to grow, thrive, play, connect, eat, and sleep.
In each of these incidents of exposure, my elderly parents were displaced once in the middle of the night and once not having been informed, having had a neighbor tell them in the middle of the night to come to our house.
I know, unfortunately, this company has been unable or unwilling to ensure their practices are meeting the standards that are set forth by the state of Texas, by this community, by our local government.
However, the CEO, oh, sounds like they got a CEO, but it did not include what was in here.
I'm just going to go to my, I hope that you listen to my words today and ask yourself, is this a place I would feel safe that my children and elderly parents sleep, play, and breathe in?
Thank you.
Any questions from the board for our speaker?
Thank you for your time.
Next, I would like to call Xavier Gonzalez, if they are in the room.
If you'll encourage, state your name and address for the record.
Xavier Gonzalez, 2715 North Elm, that was the last thing.
Just the name.
Me and my wife have lived on 2715 North Elm for at least over 13 years.
We live in the neighborhood, we enjoy the neighborhood.
It's quiet because it's industrial for a few businesses and it's mostly families.
I was born in Spinal Bifida.
I'm 47 years old, so I've actually got a good life expectancy going for me right now.
I'm a very sick person.
Living next to this place, I've had the worst summer ever.
And they actually moved that machine in April 23rd, I think.
So the time limits are actually not correct.
I actually have a Google Drive that has a lot of pictures that have dates on it.
This didn't just start with the forming.
It started probably two years prior.
The reason why I bring this up is because when you have someone who's started a business that involves the manufacturing,
you expect to see a business that thrives, that looks good, keeps everything nice and tidy.
And that's not it.
If you go to the city and go to the code people, I've been calling for a couple of years,
when they moved the machine in, they blocked mine out of my neighbor's driveway for three hours and didn't tell us.
Do we have any idea that they're going to move some kind of manufacturing to the area?
Usually people do impact statements.
Or maybe they might get a consultant from chemical people.
That way they know what they're doing.
And we all know that when you go to the city and you ask for things, you don't get it like this.
You have to go through the processes, not just a phone call.
But leaving that where it's at, we have animals like cats, one of them is sick.
He's been sick all summer. I've been sick all summer.
I say that two times and it's very, very true that I don't know what it is.
I've seen my doctor after the incident.
The incident is not the first incident.
I live next door.
My yard's affected by this because of the conditions of their trucks.
When something's not working right, they'll just hook a hose up to one of the pumps
and pump it into another truck and just leave it there for the weekend in my yard.
This has been going on for years.
And then when we get to the storage point, part of the storage barrels they have,
hundreds of barrels sit right next to where I see them every day.
They process the chlorine.
They're doing it at night with nobody there.
That's the biggest problem.
The reason why the alarm went off and nobody heard it, because they weren't there.
And somebody had doxed them.
When the fire department came, they don't know anything about you.
They don't know anything about what you have there.
All right, five fire trucks, none of them, hazmat, everybody.
And they go in and the reason why this happened, and I don't know why you can't say this,
it was an electrical glitch.
We have an old power grid there.
There's no backup generator if anything happens.
That alarm went off because the power clipped.
And my only question, where were you guys at that night?
We got evacuated and they couldn't find them.
You can ask the man over there, they couldn't find them.
And so as we go on, there's nothing but visual issues.
Storage of barrels that they say are all cleaned up.
They still have kink fluid in them, which is soap.
I know that, but they're all supposed to be clean.
They have caps on them later.
Everything they've done is because the city has come and told them to do it.
And then the inside, you saw the pictures?
I'm surprised my house has not burned down yet.
You saw the junction box?
And then a cup of, excuse me, a cup of Clorox?
But look in that picture, you'll see more than a cup of Clorox just spilling around the place.
And it wasn't a cup of Clorox.
The thing kept going because it didn't know what to do.
And we had a conversation that he said he controlled everything from his phone.
That's not, that shouldn't happen.
There should be somebody in that building.
And the building is not sealed.
It has so many holes.
And the vent that comes out to my yard that they're talking about runs when they actually process.
That's how I know when they were processing, because that vent would be on all night.
And that's it.
Thank you. Any questions?
Any questions?
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
We have one additional public comment.
I'd like to call Davina Wiley.
Wiles.
Wiles, please.
And if you could just state your name and address for us, please.
Hi, my name is Davina Wiles.
I live at 2715 North Elm.
My husband is going just speaking.
We live right next door to the company.
I am a teacher for Special Education at Eagle Middle School.
I've been living in Denton since 2004 when I came to Texas Women's University.
What I want to say about is that, yeah, we've been complaining about the chlorine.
My husband mentioned our cats started having really bad asthma issues because of the chlorine.
We can't leave our windows open because of the smell of everything that keeps coming in.
The parking lot is always dirty from dripping trucks, dripping chemicals everywhere.
We don't know what these chemicals are.
We don't know what these big old barrels are.
One time we called the city for a -- because of the different barrels all over the place.
The city came, the next thing we know is this ginormous bin that was sitting in the handicapped spot of the --
but we don't know what they are, what it was for, why it was there.
It was there for at least two or three weeks before it finally got removed.
And this was a barrel that was bigger than I am, and I'm pretty sure.
The other thing that we were noticing was the impact on, like, the trees around the area.
Like, the leaves were falling off the trees, and the trees started to look really sick.
Even, like, the grass that plants in the area started looking like --
it could be from the dripping of the trucks, too, where the grass started, like, discoloring --
or became discoloring.
I -- that's from 8 to 4, I'm sorry.
I'm getting nervous, sorry.
The grass started becoming -- turning brown, like it's dying.
The trees started dying.
This was during the summer where everything was supposed to be green,
but we had lids that had no leaves that were turning brown.
My husband, of course, like, he's -- from him getting really sick,
he's had probably one of the best -- worst asthma, because he himself has asthma, too,
as one of the effects of just the smell.
It's been pretty consistent that we've complained about it a lot.
We -- yeah, and also it's been affecting our mental health, too,
because we don't know what to do, we don't know what's going on.
It's been, I guess, making us a little bit more angry than usual.
Like I said, we've been there for -- well, he said we've been there about these 13, 14 years,
but we've never had these issues before.
We've never gotten you sick.
He's -- even I've had breathing issues, and I don't have breathing issues.
I barely have allergies.
And I've had -- we can't go outside, we can't ride bikes.
My husband just got a bike because he got a prosthetic leg.
He finally can actually do some more physical activity,
but we can't because of the chemical smells and how dirty --
even like the parking lot is blocked, the drive --
the walk paths are blocked by pickup trucks that they work on during the weekend
and at evenings where they work on different things, on fixing their vehicles,
on trash containers with trash just blown all over our yard,
and whatever chemicals are getting leaked out from those things.
I think that's all I have to say.
Is there any questions?
Thank you for your testimony.
That concludes our public comments for this hearing.
So finally, the board can ask any follow-up questions of staff
or the appellant applicant that were raised by the public but not previously answered,
and the city staff or the applicant will answer any further questions of the board.
Are there any questions from the board related to the testimony we just heard
for either the city or the appellant?
Okay. At the conclusion of the evidence, I will close the public hearing.
So upon conclusion of this testimony, evidence, any questions, answers, and arguments
were summary statements, and when the chair has determined the board has adequate information to decide,
I will then close the public hearing, and the board will have an opportunity to deliberate
and vote in the meeting directly following the public hearing.
Do I have to close the public hearing?
Close the public hearing? Yes.
So close the public hearing at 7 o'clock.
Okay. Yes. So at 7 o'clock, we close the public hearing portion.
Correct.
And since it's two separate meetings, we should adjourn the first meeting
before we get to the second meeting.
Do I have a movement to adjourn the meeting?
Excellent. I recognize member Green.
Member Redwine, I second it.
Well, we adjourn our first meeting.