This is our work session and with a quorum present, I will call us to order at 5 o 1
p.m.
I'll let the record show that Commissioner Smith is absent today.
First item on our work session is citizen comment on our consent agenda items for this
evening.
Is there anyone here wishing to speak on consent?
Seeing none, we'll move to item two, which is clarification of agenda items for tonight's
meeting.
The first being our minutes from February 14th and 21st.
Any questions on these?
Next would be our consent agenda.
Commissioners, do you have any questions on the consent agenda?
We've got two items there today.
Okay, then we've got next our items for individual consideration for A. Angie, come on up and
give us the rundown.
Why not?
We're here.
It's our protocol.
And let me find.
Here we go.
Sorry about that.
Angie Mangleris, development review manager.
This is a final plat for JPEI Bonnie Bray, it is a multifamily project on approximately
31 acres.
It is located off of Bonnie Bray Road, just south of Bronco Way.
They do not currently meet all of our criteria for approval for a final plat.
So staff is recommending denial.
We have no objection to the requested extension, which could be granted to a date certain of
March 20th, 2024, and this would be their first extension request.
Happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Any questions on that one?
Okay.
Thank you.
Next one is 4B, FP 240005.
Matt's making his way up to give us a summary of that item.
Hello there.
Hello.
Good evening.
All right.
Here we go.
All right.
So this is a final plat in the City of Denton's ETJ Division One on the very north side, Cavanaugh
Lake Roberts.
This final plat is submitted on behalf of a group seeking to put in a cell tower.
City of Denton has plotting authority and Division One, at this time, staff recommends
a denial because they do not meet our criteria for approval.
However, they did submit a request for extension and have no objection to granting that request.
Great.
Questions?
Okay.
Thank you, ma'am.
Okay.
That will take us to our public hearing portion for this evening.
5A staff is requesting to postpone that until March 20th.
Are we -- we're not needing to open that.
We are needing to open that public hearing and -- okay.
So it's already been noticed.
Okay.
So we will open that public hearing and then I'll look for a motion to postpone until the
20th.
Everyone will agree to that.
Okay.
Great.
Next public hearing item is 5BZ230014.
Hello.
Good evening.
Ashley Eckstead, assistant planner.
This is E2314.
This is a zoning change request for RDO equipment.
Their request is to change from rural residential zoning to a light industrial zoning.
This is approximately 13.4 acres and it's on the south side of US 380 west of Mosh Branch.
This was annexed in 2010 and this RR zoning is the placeholder zoning from when it was
annexed.
It is currently undeveloped and it's currently surrounded primarily by other undeveloped
property and gas wells.
Their proposed use is an equipment sales and rental use and a warehouse use.
And equipment sales and rental does require a specific use permit in LI so that will follow
at a later date and staff is recommending approval.
Happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much, Ashley.
Any questions on this item?
Commissioner Cole.
Thank you, Chair.
That gas well that's right there next to it, how many is that within the 500 feet or is
that not?
The one to the side over here?
Looks like it might be outside of it.
Yeah, it's in 500 feet but these uses aren't protected uses but that gas well is also in
the ETJ.
I'm talking about the one down here not in the ETJ.
This one, yeah.
That one is also within 500 feet.
Cool.
Thank you.
Anything else for Ashley on this one?
Okay.
Thank you much.
Okay.
The final public hearing item is 5C DCA 230002.
Hello again.
Hello everyone.
Angie Manglaris, Development Review Manager.
And this is DCA 230002B says amendments to short term rental regulations, definitions,
parking related to the use short term rentals, a little bit of background on how we got here.
This has been about a year in the making, 10 DCRC meetings were held covering this topic.
Two town hall meetings to solicit public engagement occurred as well as a online survey which
received approximately 224 responses to get input on short term rental regulations.
What we currently have, where we want to go, the DCRC as well as staff worked together
to come up with regulations that were acceptable by all and felt like were the best path forward.
Not everybody got 100% what they wanted in those discussions as far as how regulations
went but I think we did come to a middle ground that is staff sees as enforceable and will
help us achieve the goals of ensuring compliance with these regulations and registration of
short term rentals that are operating in the city.
Having said that, what's the current state of short term rentals?
Short term rentals are currently allowed in all of our residential zoning districts as
a permitted use and also in the MN zoning district as a permitted use.
As you can see by the side bar here, they do have extensive use specific standards that
are associated with them.
Those cover everything from registration requirements, what you need to provide when you register,
who needs to be available as a contact for short term rentals, parking requirements,
notification requirements to neighbors and what you are required to provide when you
do register as a short term rental.
The use today in the DDC is currently defined as the rental of an entire dwelling unit for
monetary consideration for a period of time that is less than 30 consecutive days.
We do currently require all operating short term rentals to register with the city.
As of yesterday, we have 27 registered short term rentals of an estimated 250 operating
within the city limits.
We do require and it's used kind of interchangeably in the code today, a 24 hour or a local emergency
contact to be provided by all short term rental operators, which is an individual who occupants
of a short term rental or neighboring properties could get a hold of at any time should an
emergency arise.
We don't currently have a permit cap for short term rentals in the city.
The reason I mention that right now is that is the biggest change to the use specific
standards as you see them is the recommendation of a permit cap in residentially zoned districts
of 1,000 per calendar year.
That's kind of where we are today on short term rentals.
I also wanted to throw this definition for hotel up there because a lot of times it gets
asked what is the difference between a short term rental hotel and I felt like before we
dive into this conversation tonight, it would be good to note the biggest difference is
hotels do provide additional services that includes meeting rooms, restaurants, recreational
facilities and guest quarters are typically accessed through a hallway.
Just kind of set the what's the difference in the two and how they're defined.
So the task before you tonight is to consider proposed amendments to our table of allowed
uses you specific standards are you specific standards specific to short term rentals off
street parking as well as some definitions all related to the regulation of short term
rental uses.
The reason for this is our public engagement survey showed that there are concerns related
to the impacts of short term rentals on our established single family neighborhoods.
The amendments that we've made that are proposed before you tonight are intended to limit those
impacts and strengthen the city's ability to enforce short term rental regulations as
nuisance issues may arise.
They're also meant to ensure compliance with the code and ensure that short term rental
operators are registering and we are collecting those hot taxes.
In addition, short term rentals seems to be a continuing evolving legal topic.
So some of these amendments as you see before you are meant to stay up to speed with those
court rulings as well as best practices that our other cities are doing.
And finally, these amendments are consistent with the DDC's purpose statement to promote
the health, safety and general welfare of the city of Denton's inhabitants and is also
consistent with our comprehensive plan and protecting our established neighborhoods.
So with all of that, we are recommending approval of the DDC text amendments before you this
evening.
I wanted to note that in your backup you saw several times we referenced the survey.
I do have a short summary presentation on what those survey results were if you want
to go through them during workshop, but I wanted to leave that up to the commission's
discretion.
So I wasn't planning to give it in regular meeting either, but you already had it.
So unless there are questions about it, I wasn't planning to cover it.
Are you covering anything about the survey in regular meeting?
>> I'm touching on that we had 224 respondents and the general sentiments were varied, but
there was a consistent statement that the desire to protect our established residential
areas was strong amongst all of our respondents.
>> Sure.
Okay.
>> I'm happy to answer any other questions.
>> Sounds good, I guess I'll start because I've got a couple of questions when I was
reading through the red line and through the draft.
The first one would be permit registration.
One in the same, I assume, because we're using both terms.
>> Yes, ma'am.
They are the same.
>> Okay.
So I'm wondering if we should clean that up somehow.
>> We could clean that up.
>> The other question I have regarding that is in one area it says that the permit will
expire on 12/31.
Which conflicts with the verbiage stating that it's good for one year after date of
issuance.
>> We will note that and make that change.
>> Yeah, that doesn't make sense, so we need to clean that up.
>> That needs to be cleaned up, yes, because the intent is it is one year it expires.
>> You want everybody on that same.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah, that's what I figured, so we got to clean that up.
Next one would be multifamily questions.
>> Sure.
>> So talked about how multifamily doesn't count towards the thousand in non-residential
districts, but we have multifamily in residential districts.
>> Yes, ma'am.
And that is a topic we discussed at length.
And so in R7, multifamily is permitted within SUP, so we do know that there are multifamily
developments in some of our R7 zoned parcels.
Within those circumstances, should somebody register as a short-term rental within that
multifamily development, they do count towards the thousand permit cap.
They are also limited to the two per parcel as every other residential -- I'm trying to
get to that slide while I talk -- as any other residential parcel would be restricted to.
So in our non-residential zoning districts, those are not counting towards the cap, regardless
of if you happen to have a single-family home that is situated in an MN zoning district
or a multifamily development situated in one of our MN districts, those permits will not
count towards that thousand permit cap.
In those circumstances, if we do have a multifamily property development that is getting short-term
rental permits, they would not be allowed to have more than 10% of those units registered.
>> Right.
But how many per entity are you allowing?
>> It depends.
>> Okay.
>> Based on the base zoning.
Let's say that today I had an MN development come in and want to lease out some of their
units as a short-term rental.
They would be capped at 10% of total units.
If this same development, everything was the same but the base zoning was now R7, they
could still register as a short-term rental permit, but they're held to the same standards
as everybody else in those residentially zoned districts, meaning those permits count towards
our thousand permit cap, as well as they are allowed two per parcel rather than the 10%
they could be allowed in if they had a base zoning of MN or higher, more intensive.
>> You're saying two per parcel.
>> That would be the development in that case.
>> That's one parcel.
>> Yes, ma'am.
Five units or more on a parcel is our multifamily definition.
>> Okay.
Then that took me to another question.
So duplex, triplex, fourplex, one parcel?
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> So even though if it's two or four in a building, it's considered one?
>> One parcel, yes.
>> With those duplex, triplex, fourplex, all that, so you talk about 100 foot, can't have
another one, so you're just counting those as one, however?
>> The way we grappled a little bit with our distance separation because we recognize there
may be a duplex, triplex, quadplex situation.
There may also be I have a single family home, I rent out my bedroom, I also have an ADU
and maybe that's a short-term rental, so the 100 foot distance separation is property line
to property line, which would allow individuals who would like to pursue the opportunity of
utilizing both of those options on one parcel to do so.
Both of those registrations would count towards the thousand permit, but the parcel measurement
is where we take the 100 foot from.
>> Probably the toughest question to answer is you said we've got 27 registered of what
we think we have 250 in the city.
So we're making these changes, so what makes you think that we can enforce it any more
than we're doing right now, because obviously we're not doing it right now.
Do you have any plans for that?
>> There is a lot more going on than just text amendments, and so the way we have proposed
the draft ordinance to go into effect is August 1st.
I have a tentative council deadline of March 19th, so nothing changes the adoption March
19th with a delayed effectiveness to allow for continued public outreach to contact,
and we have the list of individuals who came to our initial town halls to reach back out
and say, hey, these were adopted.
This will be effective August 1st.
That's one component of public outreach.
The other component is we're working, I say we, I mean, the development services is working
to procure an independent from our community development permit tracking software, short-term
rental specific permit tracking software that one will help us keep track of all of the
things we do have and can help us keep track of how close are we to the thousand, but also
gets the data from Airbnb and VRBO of those who we know are operating and allows us to
send out letters that say, hey, we know you're operating.
We have these requirements.
You do need to register, and so this is one part of a multifaceted kind of approach, but
I am confident that with that new software onboarding, we would be able to pursue enforcement
stronger than we are today.
And that's also part of the reason for the delayed timeline is we want that software
in place to really be able to start this on the right foot.
And is that in collaboration with any other departments in the city or is development
services handling all of this?
We are not handling it by ourselves.
I know we have several members of our finance team involved because they collect the hot
taxes, community improvement services.
They do a lot of our enforcement is involved.
I've been involved from the regulatory standpoints, and then I think those are the main ones.
So it's not just us.
Good, because it can't be.
It's such a collaborative thing to get any of this done.
So do we have in the city a space that gives everything that the city requires for a short
term rental, meaning we've got these things in the code, but this doesn't talk like this
doesn't talk about hot funds, but that's part of it.
So where do we have that somewhere?
We do have a current landing page within our permitting page of the city's website that
is short term rental specific.
And there are obviously should these be adopted on everything when we need to be changed because
it has the old regulations, but it is a single place where you can find the permit application,
the current standards, your points of contact.
So yes, it would need to be updated with these changes, but it does exist.
Where everything is...
Everything's in one neat place.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Excellent.
Okay.
I'm going to stop talking because I know other people have questions.
So who's next?
Commissioner Brut.
I just wanted to point out that one of the or a few of the modifications are specifically
to allow types of spaces that the DCRC felt were appropriate for this use to be registered,
which under our current regulations are not registerable.
So there's some portion of that 250 assumed that some of those had even come to our development
services to try to register before and they were turned away because the current code
wouldn't allow them to.
So I agree, there's probably a lot of reach out and enforcement that would have to happen
to get up to that 250, but some of the code changes are going to allow people who've been
trying to register to actually do that as well.
Okay.
Thank you for that clarification.
Appreciate that.
Other questions for Angie at this moment?
Commissioner Cole.
Thank you, Chair.
And Angie, the ones that the people, I mean, I'm a big user of Airbnb.
I have two kids that live out of state and we go visit them with Airbnb.
But the people I know in Denton at Airbnb, they do it out of their primary residence,
they live there.
Did they be treated the same, I mean, as an empty house that's being Airbnbed or, because
it is their primary residence, they are living there.
So that's a good question and I would touch on our ability to differentiate between primary
residence and those types of Airbnbs has changed in the last year with recent rulings out of
the Fifth Court Circuit saying that you can't make that differentiation.
And in the conversations with both current operators as well as the DCRC, there's not
a difference in the use.
They're still meeting that definition of renting out a space.
Now, we did see a need to refine the short-term rental definition because, as it's written
today, renting out a bedroom is not in line with the short-term rental definition nor
the use specific standards.
So you will see through that red line markup, there have been several changes to add the
bedroom option, but that is a facet of the Airbnbs and the VRBO where you can choose
to just rent out a bedroom and that's kind of how the business model works.
So in our eyes, yes, they're treated the same.
I look at it differently, that difference between the primary residence, you know, somebody
comes around the city of Dent and come into my house snooping around.
Sure.
I will note, I don't know that it helps much.
We do have a separate and independent call out, too, for bed and breakfasts, and it may
be that some of those who are renting out a bedroom might find themselves more in line
with that use and would be subject to those standards, but that is where there is a -- the
primary owner or a manager is continually on site and there may be small meals provided.
I can pull up the exact definition if you would like to see it.
But I think the code allows for a variety of short-term stays within different uses.
So for the purposes of what's a short-term rental, though, meeting the -- just the renting
out of a bedroom or a unit, whether or not you have the homeowner there, didn't change
the land use substantially to pull it apart from the overall term short-term rental.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
And you kind of touched on this a little bit, but can you kind of go in a little bit more
to how or what the repercussions would be if, like, parking becomes an issue, particularly
for those homes that are renting out single rooms?
So as a teacher, I had a lot of, you know, folks who are -- they couch-surfed, right?
So now there's a whole, like, online thing where you can just stay on someone's couch.
Obviously, you're staying in a room there.
But if you're, like, maybe in a cul-de-sac area and you've got a home that is consistently
housing, you know, two folks in two separate rooms, that's two added cars to what is already
a very limited space.
So how -- I mean, what's your plan for that?
Sure.
Parking is a challenging topic always.
And so I will -- I will start with, you know, parking on the street is parking on public
right-of-way, and there's not a way to prohibit that unless there was some sort of no parking
zone established or, you know, if you're, like, on top of a fire hydrant.
And so there's somewhat limited in what can be regulated that way.
We did find in our review and in discussing with individuals at our town halls that the
parking standards for short-term rentals came off as somewhat confusing.
And they have been clarified to specify that if I own a short-term rental, I am allowed
to advertise the number of spaces available on site and so not to over-advertise how many
vehicles one can bring, as well as provide all that information in my online listing
and written safety briefing that I would be required to provide to residents.
In addition to that, one of the issues you sometimes see, just in general, short-term
homes or single-family homes is individuals maybe parking over the sidewalk and impeding
that or parking on an unimproved surface, which are violations of the code of ordinances.
And so those issues, should they arise, could be addressed in that fashion where, you know,
parking on the grass in the front yard, specifically prohibited or blocking the sidewalk would
be prohibited.
So there's no like one solution to fix that, but I think my hope would be by clarifying
how many cars are available, limits, how many individuals are trying to bring to a short-term
rental if they know the parking is not there.
And then also using those warnings and citations where appropriate if there's consistent parking
on the sidewalk or on an unimproved surface and causing property maintenance issues.
Thank you, Chair.
Anybody else?
Commissioner Cole.
Thank you, Chair.
So one concern is that these corporate Airbnb interests that operate the many, how do you,
I mean, I kind of worry that they're going to eat up all the permits and the little people
are going to get squeezed out.
I don't know how you police that, but that's a worry I have, you know, because in my mind
there is a difference between a bedroom and a primary residence than another property.
I mean, there's no way to police that, I mean, I worry about the little people getting squeezed
out.
Sure.
And Hillary can correct me if I misstate, but there wouldn't be a way to police that
because I don't believe we can discriminate between who may and may not own a short-term
rental.
I hear your concerns about the mom and pop Airbnb getting squeezed out because we've
hit our permit cap.
I will say I believe that the way that these standards are written is that the thousand
permit in single-family residentially zoned properties only, I guess 3% of all single-family
residentially zoned properties in the city, I'm sorry, parcels in the city.
We do not believe that we are close to that number at this time given the estimates we
have are coming in around 250.
This is absolutely something that can be and will be monitored as time goes on.
If we find that something changes in the Denton landscape and suddenly we are getting a football
game that's really important and now there's a lot of those permits being taken up, if
council or staff at that time season need to maybe revisit those policies, it's something
that could be flexible in the future.
By not having the cap in our commercially zoned properties, the thought is that we start
to see more short-term rentals in the areas where you would want to encourage them anyway
in your downtown, near your universities, along major thoroughfares.
Just to add an additional response, Angie did a great job in her response, but I wanted
to add this is something that the DCRC discussed extensively.
We determined that to Angie's point, it would be very difficult for us to try to be able
to regulate or limit the number that a operator could have.
What if you want three and Commissioner Thacker decides she wants five and Commissioner Villarreal
has got 10 and I've got 20, right?
How do we keep up with all of that?
Because we could simply tweak our LLC name, if you will, and so then because I changed
my LLC name, then I got another 50 or 10, and so we realized, we debated that and discussed
that extensively and just found that there was really no effective way for us to be able
to really keep up and regulate that, hence why we've tried to come up with different
approaches in order to be able to regulate this type of use.
To Angie's point, we do think the thousand permit cap is reasonable.
It's representative of approximately 3% of the housing units within Dunton.
To Angie's point also, we find that we are bumping up against that thousand permit cap.
If there's interest from council for us to revisit this ordinance, we could at that time
and then have the conversation all over again as to what we think is an appropriate number
of units.
But know that the DCRC took that seriously and had lots of conversation and we could
not come up with a good means of being able to track that reasonably and force that, just
knowing that people could make simple tweaks to their LLC names.
Commissioner Thacker.
Thank you, Chair.
Does the permit follow the property, which doesn't really make a lot of sense, obviously,
for someone that's in a residential area that is renting out one room, but for somebody
that's interested in purchasing a bed and breakfast, if they know that there's already
been 1,000 permits that have been distributed, it might influence whether or not they're
going to purchase that bed and breakfast, if they know that they're going to the bottom
of the line when it comes to getting that permit.
So will it follow the properties if someone were to purchase them?
If somebody were to follow a ... I'm sorry.
The way that we have it written is once the short-term rental permit is in existence,
there's an opportunity to renew that, and the renewal period is November 1 through December
31, so there is some room now.
As far as the exchange of the business ownership and all of that, that would be handled privately,
but if that permit were to be renewed, if we saw a change in ownership, we could still
track that in our system as well as utilize the right to conduct an additional inspection
if city staff felt like that was needed due to the change in circumstances.
Okay.
But now, we're not ... Bed and breakfast is different than what we're talking about too,
right?
And I meant to ... I'm sorry.
Yeah.
You are short-term rentals for the 1,000 permit cap.
The bed and breakfast ...
That's a separate use.
Separate use.
That's not this.
Yeah.
Sure.
Okay.
So, I mean, just in general, if somebody is wanting ... So let's say that it is just
a single-family home and they are renting out one of their rooms.
If they had gotten the permit and then they sold it to someone else, would they still
be able to maintain that permit if they wanted to continue to use that room in their house
for rental?
Short-term rental.
Sure.
I would imagine if we had a valid permit and all the appropriate ownership contact information
as well as our required local emergency individual was identified, that that permit would remain
valid and when the expiration permit ... When the expiration of the permit draws close,
they would be allowed to apply for a renewal in their queue.
Yeah, because you are registering that permit to either the property owner or their designated
person, right?
Yes.
So if there was a change in ownership of the property ... I mean ...
We could probably add language.
It seems almost like the permit would not be valid because it's in someone else's name
and this new owner is ... So ...
What we could do is we could look at adding language to the ordinance that addresses if
there is a change in ownership that the permit would stay with the structure, with the land,
if you will, but would be subject to the renewal if the commission felt like we needed to add
that clarity within the ordinance.
But that's a slippery slope because ... I mean, what if that new owner doesn't want
a permit associated with their home that they're buying?
So ... But they don't have to use it then.
Okay, but also ... I mean, it's just ... So if you owned a house
and you were operating a short-term rental and you had the permit issued there and I
purchased your home from you, then the permit would stay with the home where I could update
all of the contact information with the city and then you don't get to take that permit
with you when you go buy ... Presumably, if you bought a new home and you wanted to operate
a short-term rental out of your new home, you would have to register that particular
property in order to be able to operate.
Me as the purchaser of your old home would still have the ability to exercise that permit
because it was issued to the home, but I would have to ... What I heard from Angie, and correct
me if I'm wrong, is I would have to make sure I update all of the information with the city
unless do we have something else to add?
Just in thinking and listening to all of this, I think while it might be a rare situation,
we may be able to address it by adding a clause towards our renewal period that may be a 30-day
to update all of the information when the house sells might be an acceptable manner
to address that because the ownership would have to be updated as well as the emergency
contact.
I don't think it would necessarily be a common thing, and I'm not even sure that it should
go with the sale, to be honest with you, because ...
That would be an unusual situation where, but ...
It would be, but if you have ... And again, this is if we ever get to our thousand limit,
but if you have a waiting list, that certainly wouldn't be fair if I buy this home that has
this permit on it, and I'm not going to use it for that, and I buy the home in March,
and this permit's good for ... We keep those people on this waiting list.
They can't do anything until December.
Yeah.
If I don't renew it.
So I don't know.
That would be where my 30-day suggestion would come in.
I can understand that that permit was ... Maybe that person bought the home with the idea
to continue the short-term rental, but putting a very specific timeframe on when you lose
your spot may be a simple sentence that we can add into the expiration statements that
we have.
Okay.
I would agree.
Yeah.
Good question.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Jer.
Yeah, I was just going to point, you kind of alluded to it, that functionally, what happens
in that hypothetical, it only matters whether it stays and then transfers versus going away
and reapplying if you're already at the thousand cap, right?
So that may be one of those things.
I'm fine with the additional language, just to make it clear, because I would assume most
purchasers of a home, if they knew that it was using that way, they would assume that
they could continue that, right?
Another thing, just wanted to kind of add some color to Commissioner Cole's consternation
a little bit, because I have some similar consternation.
I wonder if it might help, if either Angie or legal, if you could summarize the restrictions
that we have both on residency within the city and then separately if there's a restriction
or not on defining occupied home that has a separate portion of that rented out.
I think that would clarify your...
Am I getting to what you were thinking there?
Okay.
Restrictions in so far as whether we could regulate that use separately if a person resides
in the city versus residing outside, and then part B, whether you can regulate it differently,
whether a person lives on premises or not.
Does that make sense?
Because we spent a lot of time on this, and I will ramble and confuse everybody if I try
to summarize.
My understanding is the ruling out of the New Orleans case was we can no longer make
the distinction between really LLC, me, Angie, you, Commissioner Pruitt, and likewise, whether
or not that is your primary...
Specifically, we cannot make the distinction that it be your primary residence, but that
has a broader impact and addresses all of those, and Hillary is going to add some really
great stuff.
If y'all want a little lesson about why, I can provide it, but she's factually accurate.
Do you want some background?
Sure, let's do it.
Okay.
Dr. Professor Hillary here.
So the Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution says Congress regulates commerce between the
states.
If we have a rule that says you have to live in the STR or you have to be a resident of
the state, or in the case of New Orleans, if you can only register your homestead property,
that means that that regulation effectively prohibits persons from outside of that jurisdiction
from participating in the commerce activity of a short-term rental.
Therefore, that means we're discriminating against out-of-state participants, which is
a violation of the Constitution.
And so for that reason, we're not recommending...
We being legal is not recommending treating out-of-state versus in-state versus Denton
specifically any differing.
So with that and with the concerns that have been brought up, is there any way to...
Is it against that ruling or the Constitution, probably not the Constitution in this case,
but to be able to have different rules if someone does live in their home and rents
out there?
Like, can we, I think as Commissioner Pruitt was trying to point out that maybe we can
designate or just differentiate?
Right.
So those kinds of rules have been the subject of recent litigation that is still ongoing.
What I like about what Denton is proposing is that the cap is only on residential STRs,
which as Angie has mentioned is a pretty small portion of our housing stock.
And that means that for our specific city interest of protecting residential neighborhoods,
we have a pretty good reason for that cap.
And our no cap on non-residential/commercial properties is effectively trying to encourage
a market-based solution to that problem.
Basically encouraging the persons who are doing this for a primary source of income
or from out-of-state or whatever to go ahead and locate in those non-commercial areas because
they are closer to colleges, closer to our tourism type areas, closer to logical places
for an STR occupant to go.
And so without giving privileged legal advice that we would need to go into closed about,
I think we've got the best available.
So basically with that differentiation of the cap only being in the residential zoning
districts and no cap in the non-residential districts, that we've kind of maybe fixed
that problem.
>> It's an indirect fix.
>> We'll have that.
>> It absolutely is an indirect fix.
But I think it -- I'm not the economist here.
I think Commissioner Pruitt is probably the closest to being an economist in here.
I think it is -- I meant that as a compliment, sir.
I think that that's likely to drive operators of a commercial into places where we're more
comfortable with them going.
>> And to that point, we looked at a lot of studies, for example, on how are we addressing
trying to mitigate impacts in residential areas while still allowing a higher density
concentration in our non-residential areas.
And we utilized Santa Fe, New Mexico as really our example of how we came to this solution.
And if you all are bored, I'm happy to send out the link to their GIS landing page and
their short-term rental regulations.
But you'll find very similar.
There's a cap in residential areas, but no cap in their commercially zoned areas.
And when they map it on their GIS map, you can see very clearly where there starts to
be almost a natural congregation around what their downtown is and other tourist hotspots
because that's where you find their mixed-use zonings and their higher density and their
commercial-based.
And so the idea would be that we see a similar effect here.
>> Okay.
Commissioner Villarreal.
>> Thank you, Chair.
I'm asking this because we've seen it occur in both Louisville and Plano, who have been
the most recent cities and municipalities to institute changes to STR rules.
Have we considered putting a moratorium on new STRs while we get the new rules instituted
and while we collect information on existing STRs to allow staff enough time to collect
that information, considering we know that, you know, 90% of our STRs are not currently
registered?
>> I've talked relatively extensively with those who are, you know, tasked with reviewing
those permits as well as the team that will be implementing the STR software, and we feel
confident that we do not need that additional timeline.
It is a few months, and the idea would be to get the word out there, but I do not think
we need that additional time to get everything in place.
And we've built in a little bit of buffer from when I expect that software to be fully
live to August 1st, and I believe we'll be able to achieve our goals just fine.
>> I would agree, and also, because keep in mind, we already allow short-term -- we already
allow short-term rentals in all of our residential zoning districts plus the MN district.
So in some of those other communities, their ordinances are -- do not address short-term
rentals, or they have not had ordinances in place.
In Plano's case, I know they've been working with their task force, and I believe they
even have a meeting this evening to address how they may -- what regulatory provisions
they may put in place moving forward.
But I feel like our situation has been a little bit different because our community has embraced
allowing for short-term rentals, and so now we are making additional refinements to our
regulations to be able to ensure that we continue to protect the residential character of our
neighborhoods while also being able to balance that with all of the ever-changing legal environment
in which we've been having to evaluate this and operate under.
And if I could circle back, you know, with respect to the question on trying to regulate
differently, you know, as Hillary pointed out, there was the court case, and I know
Angie's made reference to it.
We have already made that change to our ordinance.
If you recall, we broke our process into two phases.
Phase one, we purposely addressed the legal issue coming out of the court case, and then
we did this phase two because this was taking more time and we didn't want to subject ourselves
to any potential litigation, so hence why we took care of the other issue on the front
end.
>> Commissioner Cole.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Angie, so, you know, we have an estimate of how many we think there are in town.
Have you done -- what's the revenue that would come off of this to the city?
Do you have an estimate of that?
>> I do not off the top of my head.
I could reach out to those who are more involved with the administration of our hot funds to
see what that may be, but we're missing out on probably tens of thousands, I believe was
the estimate I've heard of hot tax collection.
>> Other questions for Angie?
If we come up with others, we can talk about them.
Thank you for this.
>> Thanks so much.
>> Yeah, as you can see, this is a complicated topic.
I remember when we did this new code, we actually taped -- we just put it aside and said, we'll
get back to -- that was 2019, like, we'll keep talking about this, and we've been talking
about it and talking about it, and DCRC has been, yeah, doing a great job and staff talking
through it, so it's probably long overdue that we're getting some of this in place.
Go ahead.
>> So I know we've talked about one potential change to the ordinance.
Not knowing what to expect this evening in terms of our public engagement, we have done
-- I say we, Angie and Matt have extensively done a public engagement phase trying to get
the word out.
We've done a press release.
We've also done push notifications with respect to social media in order to be able to help
inform property owners and residents within our community that we're working on this.
If the commission feels that additional refinements are needed to be made, then we could always
continue the public hearing and make those changes.
With this one modification that we've discussed this evening, you know, if you're comfortable
with everything else that we have in the ordinance, if you feel so forth as you want to allow
us to be able to move forward with these ordinance amendments, you can always recommend approval
with the condition or with the request that we go back and revisit the one provision regarding
the transfer of the sale of property and being able to address that based upon what Angie
had suggested in our work session.
And she's raising her hand.
>> Sorry.
>> I need you to come to the podium if you're going to talk.
>> I apologize for sitting down, also if we're making note, if you could make note of the
expiration correction that would need to be made.
I've made note of it, but it would be good to have it in a motion, so that's all.
Sit down now.
>> Okay.
Great.
Okay.
Thank you.
>> So with Angie's side.
>> Very good.
Awesome.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
We do have a work session report left because that takes us through the end of our regular
meeting topics.
I am going to ask you, commissioners, do you want to have recess real quick so you can
get food and then we'll hear the report before we run out of time when it happens a lot.
So let's go ahead and take a quick recess at 5.49 p.m.
We'll get food and we'll come right back here so we can get right into that report.
Thank you for allowing us that short recess.
I'll call us back to order at 5.59 p.m. for our final work session item today which is
3A PZ230.
Receive a report.
Hold a discussion regarding Denton's Simply Sustainable Framework.
Thank you for your patience with us.
Hi.
>> Of course.
Good evening.
I'm Sarah Barnett, sustainability manager for the City of Denton.
So I'm going to probably go through the slides a little more quickly so you can get to your
meeting on time.
We'll have time for questions.
So we're just going to talk a little bit about the framework focus areas and the synergies
that we have with other -- speak into it.
>> Speak into the microphone.
>> I'm sorry.
I'm used to the up in the air microphones.
>> That's okay.
They're recording.
So I think if you speak directly in the microphone, it will help reduce the feedback you're getting.
>> Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> So the land use sections and then transportation, energy, water and waste are the framework
focus areas that we feel most aligned with land use and planning and development.
The simply sustainable framework was developed in 2012 and updated in 2020 is when that adoption
occurred.
It was actually a '18-'19 document that wasn't adopted until 2020.
So we're working with information that's more than five years old.
So we're going through another update right now.
So the land use section of the framework, we have encourage, preserve, minimize, encourage,
just really trying to create that behavior change and see what we can do to spur development
to be more sustainable just across the whole city.
And we also have the tree canopy goals included in there similar to our urban forest master
plan goals.
So some of the synergies between the 2040 comp plan and then the parks and rec and trails
master plan and the urban forest master plan, we just want to give you a little bit of kind
of a look at what those look like as you cross the 2040 plan.
So these are key actions from the comp plan that are very similar with what we have in
the sustainability framework.
So you see how the other plans kind of feed in to the sustainability goals.
And then this plan was adopted in March of 2022.
So we do need to work to incorporate that in our framework update.
Similar to the parks and recreation and trail system master plan, a lot of these objectives
or actions are very similar to what we have to increase walkability, to have that 10 minute
walk, to have the trail connections, the off street and create those safety standards for
mobility.
When we get into the transportation, water and energy sectors, again, we're trying to
reduce the environmental impacts.
We want to have that green infrastructure.
We want to encourage the reductions in per capita usage, whether it's energy, water,
reducing your waste so that we're saving landfill space.
And then one thing that we've been consistent with in the city of Denton is the energy efficiency
building standards.
We have been ahead of schedule on adoption of those standards compared to most cities
in the state.
So that's a real bonus for us.
So when you look at the mobility plan, which includes the bike plan, the pedestrian plan,
the renewable resource plan, which is underway right now through Denton Municipal Electric,
they're updating that plan.
Water and wastewater master plans are being updated.
The water conservation and drought contingency plan is being updated.
And then we have the comprehensive solid waste management strategy, which doesn't give us
the clear objectives that we could pull out from the mobility plan to show you exactly
what that looks like here.
But as all of these are updated, we'll start pulling out those pieces of it that really
fit with sustainability.
So just a few of the objectives from the mobility plan, just so you kind of see how that all
works together.
And then this, again, it works through all of our sustainability education and all of
our efforts that we're doing to try to get folks to be thinking about this holistically.
On the energy, water, and waste, that's where we have a lot of these plans that are still
ongoing.
So that's something we still have the opportunity to build out through this update.
So with the framework committee, we're working on the review and the update for the Simply
Sustainable Framework.
If you're not familiar with the committee, it's an appointed board, and their charge
is to advise council on implementing the sustainability framework.
And then we'll work to incorporate all of the newly adopted programs and goals with
our sustainability efforts.
I know that was fast, so if y'all have any questions on any of this, I figure we need
to jump off into questions.
Questions as people are eating?
If anybody's done chewing.
Commissioner Perot.
Thank you.
First, a general one, and then a specific one, just because we flew by it.
And it's a term that I barely think I might know what it understand means.
I can't talk this evening.
So first, general, has the sustainable -- the framework committee -- what's the term?
The Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee.
Advisory Committee.
Thank you.
Has that committee broached issues of land use and how -- I understand the medium, shorter,
long-term goals of actions that we're going to take.
Have they given any guidance on what we can do as we consider land use changes to make
sure that we're consistent with that?
Does that make sense?
Like has there been much talk in the committee yet about the land use component, I guess?
Or is that something that is in the future?
Not on the specific land usage yet.
Some of the land use goals in the framework, it's not really that granular on the development.
It may speak to mixed use, walkable, infill, but they aren't getting into the site-specific
--
Sure.
Understood.
-- or the zoning or anything along those lines.
Okay.
Now my fun question that hopefully will get some other people with questions thinking.
If you could go back, I think, three slides?
There.
Transportation demand management.
Can you explain kind of what that is and how that fits into this?
This is straight from the mobility plan.
Okay.
Oh, sorry.
But I do definitely understand the strategies to reduce dependence on single occupancy vehicles.
So all of the methods that you can use to reduce the single occupancy vehicle, so whether
it's walkability, whether it's bikeability, creating mixed use developments where you
don't have to get in your car to go do something.
Okay.
So I'm understanding sort of allowing or planning mobility access as well as land use all together
so that we start to reduce or increase VMT vehicle miles traveled as we go forward.
Is that kind of the idea?
Yes.
From the sustainability side.
Okay.
Definitely we're looking at VMT reduction.
Okay.
Thank you.
Oh, go ahead.
I guess just to help with the benefit for the rest of the group, so transportation demand
management is really a set of defined strategies aimed at maximizing travelers' choices.
So allowing people to have a variety of options.
So Catherine mentioned looking at other modes such as bicycle transportation.
So one of the things that our transportation services team is doing in support of the mobility
plan is making sure that we are looking at context-sensitive design, that we're looking
at implementing a variety of transportation mode options.
Our mobility plan, if you recall, was heavy on not only addressing vehicle, but also the
pedestrian component and the bicycle component.
Other questions for Catherine?
Catherine, does this committee meet on the regular?
I know it's been established for like, what, three years now or something like that?
Two, two and a half years, I think.
We meet on the fourth Friday in this room, and it's televised.
Fourth Friday at one p.m.
Has it been the same group the whole time?
We have had a few changes.
I think we have three, four members that have stayed on for almost the entire time, yes.
Yeah, because that's just, obviously you're working through a lot of ongoing issues.
Absolutely.
So I assume this committee is staying together for a bit to continue to put this together?
Yes.
Okay.
Other questions for Catherine?
Okay.
It would be great if, we didn't have this in our backup, but maybe if we could kind
of have this emailed out to us, just.
Yeah, I'll get it to you.
Yeah, so since we went through it so fast, just to be able to kind of read through it
and just kind of-
If you have any questions, reach out.
Know what the focus is on the committee.
We can follow up.
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Yeah, absolutely.
Appreciate you being here.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
With that, that concludes our work session.
So I'll go ahead and adjourn us at 610, meet you in council chambers at 630.
Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for
Wednesday, February 28th, 2024.
With the quorum present, I will call us to order at 633 PM.
I'll let the record show that Commissioner Smith is absent this evening.
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.
Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.
Thank you.
Next item on our agenda is consider the approval of our agenda minutes from our meetings February
20th, I'm sorry, February 14th and February 21st.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Move approval.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Second.
First and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Let's go ahead and vote, please.
That motion carries five zero.
That will take us to our consent agenda this evening.
Look for discussion or motion.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Move approval.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Second.
I've got a first and a second for approval of the consent agenda discussion.
Next vote, please.
That motion carries five zero.
That will take us to our items for individual consideration.
Our first is 4A FP 240006.
Angie is here for presentation.
Hello.
Hey, good evening, Chair, members of the commission.
I'm Angie Manglaris, development review manager.
This is a final plat FP 240006 for JPI Bonnie Bray.
This is a final plat for approximately 31 acres for the development of a future multifamily
development.
The subject property is zoned MN.
It is located off of Bonnie Bray Road, just south of Bronco Way.
At this time, the final plat does not meet our criteria for approval, so staff is recommending
denial.
However, we have no objection to the request of extension, which could be granted to a
date of March 20th, 2024.
And this is their first extension request, and I'm happy to answer any questions you
may have.
Thank you very much, Angie.
Any questions for Angie?
You're not seeing.
Thank you.
Commissioner Villarreal.
I move approval of the extension request to a date certain of March 20th, 2024.
Great.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
We've got a first and a second for approval of the extension request to a date certain
of March 20th, 2024 discussion.
Let's go ahead and vote, please.
That motion carries 5-0.
That will take us to 4B, FP 240005.
And Matt is here for a presentation of this item.
Good evening.
Good evening, Commission, Matt Bourdine, Assistant Planner.
So today here to consider a request for a final plot of lot one, block one, Boeing edition.
It's approximately a seven-acre tract located in the north part of the city of Dentons at
ETJ Division 1.
This plot is for a single-family property wishing to put a cell tower on it.
At this time, staff recommends denial because it does not meet the established criteria
for approval.
However, we have no objection to the requested extension to March 20th.
Great.
Thank you, Matt.
Appreciate it.
Commissioner Villarreal.
I move approval of the extension request to a date certain of March 20th, 2024.
Commissioner Perot.
Second.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of March
20th, 2024, discussion.
Let's vote, please.
That motion carries 5-0.
That'll take us to our public hearings for this evening.
First is 5A DCA 240002.
I will go ahead and open the public hearing and mention that staff has requested that
this item be postponed until March 20th.
Chair can entertain a motion or discussion.
Commissioner Villarreal.
I move approval of the extension request to the postponement to the date certain of March
20th, 2024.
Very good.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
Okay, we've got a first and a second to postpone this item to a date certain of March 20th,
2024, leaving the public hearing open.
Discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote, please.
That motion carries 5-0.
That'll take us to 5BZ230014.
I will go ahead and open the public hearing, and Ashley's here for presentation.
Hi.
Good evening.
Ashley, EXTED Assistant Planner.
This is Z2314.
This is a zoning change request for RDO equipment.
Their request is to go from a rural residential zoning to a light industrial zoning on approximately
13.4 acres.
This site is located on the south side of 380, west of Mosh Branch Road.
It is currently undeveloped and it's surrounded primarily by other undeveloped property and
gas wells, and their proposed use is in equipment sales and rental and warehouse use, and equipment
sales and rental use does require a specific use permit in light industrial, and that application
will be following after this one on a different date.
This site is consistent with the future land use map.
The future land use map designates this as light industrial and industrial commerce.
Light industrial designation is intended for tracts of lands that are appropriate for light
industrial activity, warehousing, associated supporting uses, and retail.
Industrial commerce applies to areas where the predominant uses are both heavy and light
industrial uses.
It does also comply with the intent of LI zoning, which is primarily to provide locations
for a variety of light industrial and employment uses, warehousing, and a wide range of supporting
commercial uses and activities.
It does also meet the criteria for approval of the Denton Development Code.
It's consistent with the goals and policies of the future land use map and the Denton
2040 Comprehensive Plan, and it's also consistent with the LI zoning district purpose statement.
This rezoning is not expected to generate significant adverse environmental infrastructure or fiscal
impacts.
Notifications were sent out.
The notifications were posted in the newspaper in the city's website.
They were also posted on the property on January 11th.
We sent out notices to everyone within 500 feet, and we did not receive any responses
in opposition or in favor.
The applicant also sent out neighborhood meeting invitations and did not receive any RSVPs,
so the meeting was not held.
Staff does recommend approval of the zoning changes.
It complies with the criteria for approval of the Denton Development Code and happy to
answer any questions.
Thank you very much, Ashley.
Any questions at this time for Ashley?
Okay.
I do have one card here, and it is the applicant.
I'll allow Amy Bissett to come forward and speak.
Hi.
Good evening, commissioners.
I have a few slides, but I'm not going to show them to you unless you really want to
see them.
So I'll just be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Any questions for Amy?
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
I don't have any other cards in front of me, but this is a public hearing.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item?
Okay.
Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion
or a motion.
Commissioner Cole.
I make a motion to approve.
Okay.
Commissioner Fager.
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote on the board, please.
The motion will carry 5-0.
That will take us to our final public hearing item this evening.
That's 5C, DCA 230002.
I will go ahead and open the public hearing, and Angie is here for presentation.
Thank you, Chair, members of the commission, Angie Manglaris, Development Review Manager.
This is DCA 230002.
This is short-term rental regulations and the associated code amendments that go along
with that land use.
Give you a little bit of background.
This topic has been in discussion with city staff as well as the Development Code Review
Committee for approximately the last year.
There were 10 DCRC discussions on the topic related to short-term rentals and how we could
approve the standards that we have in our code today.
So a little bit about the short-term rental standards that we have today before we go
into a little bit more detail on the background and the proposed amendments.
Short-term rentals are currently in allowed use in the DDC.
These are allowed uses in all of our residentially zoned districts as well as the MN district.
There are associated use-specific standards that come along with this use.
That includes registration requirements, providing a 24-hour contact, requiring that when you
do register with the city, we currently have approximately 27 registered short-term rentals
in the city out of an estimated 250.
Short-term rental is currently defined in the DDC as the rental of an entire dwelling
unit for monetary consideration for a period of time less than 30 consecutive days.
This definition is separate and independent of our definitions for bed and breakfasts,
boarding houses, rooming house and hotels.
So that's just a little bit about where short-term rentals are allowed today, what they're currently
defined as, as some of the requirements that they're subject to.
So some background on these code amendments.
The beginning of 2023, staff began reviewing the standards in the debt and development
code as it relates to short-term rentals in response to recent rulings out of the Fifth
Circuit Court, which held that requiring short-term applicants to demonstrate that a short-term
rental dwelling unit was their primary residential unit was unconstitutional.
And staff saw the need for an immediate amendment to the DDC as this was a regulation that could
be legally challenged.
So at that time we initiated essentially phase one of the short-term rental code update process,
which was to remove this requirement from the code.
During this time and as those discussions were ongoing, city staff was reviewing our
short-term rental requirements against other recent legislation that had been in discussions
as well as how other cities in our area were monitoring short-term rentals and how they
were regulating them.
As we're reviewing additional legislative issues came to light and helped inform the
decisions that staff was making and communicating to the DCRC.
So throughout the spring of 2023, the DCRC and city staff discussed short-term rentals
and identified several areas that could use improvement or clarification in our code.
One of those has already been addressed as we discussed and that was removing the primary
residency requirement from the code.
But there were other areas that came up that we saw need for improvement and that was refining
our definitions for local emergency contact, providing clarification as what could be or
what does classify as a short-term rental, refining our notification requirements, what's
included in those who's notified when a short-term rental property does register, revising our
advertisement requirements for short-term rentals, providing additional clarification
to our enforcement and revocation processes for short-term rentals.
And we also began to discuss consideration of maximum densities and exploring what those
topics may look like.
And so those were some of the topics that the DCRC city staff discussed through the
spring of 2023 prior to bringing that to public hearing for consideration.
Staff determined it was necessary to prepare a public engagement plan to solicit resident
input related to those proposed STR regulations.
So in the summer, staff held two town hall meetings and conducted an online survey related
to short-term rentals and the proposed amendments that we were considering.
As far as the online survey goes, a total of 224 individuals did participate in the
20-question survey.
The survey covered general questions related to STR sentiment as well as more specific questions
about preferences in STRs as they relate to regulations in the city of Denton.
The results from the survey reflected a general desire to maintain the integrity of single
family areas within the city of Denton while still allowing for short-term rentals in some
of our higher density areas within the city.
At this point, city staff and the DCRC began exploring different density thresholds for
short-term rentals in residential areas while still trying to find a balance where a higher
density of those uses could be allowed in different areas of the city.
So throughout the fall of 2023, the DCRC and city staff explored various options for density
and distance separation requirements to adequately address the concerns that were seen throughout
the short-term rental preference survey.
So that is a little bit of background on the code amendments that you are considering this
evening and I'm going to walk through the amendments.
You do have an extensive red line in your backup, but I did want to cover each subsection
of those and talk through some of those amendments that are being proposed.
So the first one, you'll notice that one of the changes that we're making or proposing
is that in every zoning district where a residential use is allowed, allowing short-term rentals
to be an allowed use as well or permitted use, as I said earlier, currently short-term
rentals are permitted in all of our residential zoning districts, plus the MN district.
This would expand those opportunities, allowing short-term rentals in the MD district, MR
district, SC, HC, and general office districts.
In addition, modifying the maximum persons section in the use specific standards, maximum
persons occupying a dwelling unit to incorporate short-term rentals within that overall exempt
land use.
So that is the change that you see in that subsection.
As it relates to the specific section where the short-term rental use specific standards
are found, there are changes made throughout really all of that subsection of our ordinance,
but some of the major ones are refining our registration requirements, clarifying that
a bedroom or a unit may be listed as a short-term rental.
If you'll recall when we talked about the definition earlier, the code currently calls
out today that the entire dwelling unit be considered a short-term rental.
This would expand options to include an individual bedroom, and also refines the information
that we require to be provided at the time of registration, including management companies
where applicable, and we clarify what we mean by local emergency contact and make it a little
more succinct and easy to understand.
In addition to the use specific standards, that is not currently in the code today that
I'm going to talk through a little bit, is the proposed permitting cap.
This is a new addition to the use specific standards, and it is intended to address the
concerns that came out of the short-term rental preference survey.
The permitting cap is kind of divided into two categories.
One is registrations or permits in residentially zoned districts.
In residentially zoned districts, that's RR through R7, the proposal is a 1,000 permit
limit.
This applies to only short-term rentals within our residentially zoned areas.
Applications shall be processed in the order that they're received, and should the number
reach 1,000, those will stop being processed for that calendar year.
A maximum of two short-term rental permits may be issued per parcel with a minimum distance
separation of 100 feet parcel line to parcel line for existing short-term rentals.
A note about multifamily developments within residentially zoned districts, because that
is possible with the R7 zoning.
Those registrations do count towards the total 1,000 permit cap.
In addition, those developments are also held to the maximum of two registered short-term
rentals per parcel.
They're subject to all of the requirements within the residentially zoned districts,
because that is the district they ultimately fall in, which is slightly different than
when we talk about our non-residential districts and permitting in there.
When we talk about short-term rental permits in our non-residential zoning districts, those
do not count towards the overall 1,000 permit cap, nor are they subject to the 100-foot
separation rule.
This is regardless of if it's a single-family home that may be in an MN district or a multifamily
development that may be in the MN district.
For those multifamily developments that we have within our non-residential zoning districts,
the limitation is a maximum of 10% of all units may be listed for those developments
as a short-term rental.
With a minimum of two, in case 10% happens to come out to like 1.5 or something, giving
them the same allowance that those in the residential zoning districts do have, however,
in no circumstance would they be allowed more than 10% of all of their units to be registered
as short-term rentals.
Moving on, further refinements were made to what is required to be provided in written
briefings and safety features to those who are staying within short-term rentals, how
to get in touch with the local emergency contact, as well as making some slight adjustments
to the notification requirements of approval of short-term registration, clarifying when
that notification of registration should occur, as well as what information needs to be included
in that notification.
Another major change compared to some of the tax changes that have been made is the subsection
6, the revocation term fees and registration term fees and revocation.
There's been an additional refinement of under the terms in which a short-term rental permit
may be revoked, and that is the sample text that you see here on the side, which is that
after receiving three notices of violation for a property maintenance code or the debt
and development code, a short-term rental permit may be revoked.
It also specifies the processes for which somebody could appeal that decision should
they wish to.
In addition, subsection 7, right to inspect premises, some language cleanup was done there
to specify the circumstances under when a short-term rental inspection may occur.
Finally, there are some other areas in the code that do address our short-term rentals
and their regulations, and that is Table 7.9-I, which is where we house our minimum all-street
parking requirements.
Both the town halls and the preference survey showed a need to clarify this language a little
more, and so the language has been refined to state that the short-term rental parking
shall specify the maximum number of vehicles that are allowed on-premise for a short-term
rental shall be limited to what is provided off-street.
So you're not allowed to advertise more parking than you have on your site.
In addition, the definitions that relate to short-term rentals have been revised.
Short-term rental, this definition has been modified to incorporate the bedroom as an
allowable listing unit, as well as the entire dwelling unit, and further refines the timeline
that a short-term rental shall not be less than 24 hours nor greater than 29 consecutive
days.
And then the local emergency contact, that definition was refined to be a little more
consolidated and concise to better communicate that that person needs to be available 24
hours for both those who are staying in the short-term rental and those who may live near
one.
That is a summary of the proposed amendments, as you see in your backup.
Staff is recommending approval of these text amendments as it meets the criteria for approval,
both generally and specific to text amendments in the DDC.
The next step would be a city council public hearing following this meeting, should this
vote to move forward this evening.
That is my presentation.
I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have regarding short-term rentals.
Thank you, Angie.
Commissioner Thacker.
Thank you, Chair.
First of all, Angie, incredible presentation.
Thank you for giving all that information to us.
I can tell you guys have done a lot of legwork on this.
Good question, what has been discussed regarding the permit if there is a change of ownership
in the property and how that property will be defined?
For instance, if there's someone that owns their home and they are using it in this manner,
and then they change ownership, does the permit follow the dwelling or does it follow the
person?
I guess I'm just trying to understand how the 1,000 permit limit will work and how the
wait list will work if it indeed follows the residence itself.
Sure, and I think that was an area identified in work session that it is not something that
we really can contemplate as a possibility occurring, a possible solution that was identified
was should somebody acquire a property that had been used as a short-term rental, possibly
putting a timeframe limitation on, they're allowed 30 days to update that or they lose
that permit because should we ever get to the 1,000 permit cap, that could become an
issue for those who are waiting, so if that's a change that we'd like to see, then that
could be incorporated.
Happy to do that.
Currently, there's nothing in there that addresses that.
Any other questions for Angie at this time?
This is a public hearing.
I do not have any cards in front of me.
Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item?
Okay.
Before I close the public hearing, I would like to bring forward for discussion with
the commission is several things were brought up in work session.
One was what Commissioner Thaggard just brought up.
Some other items related to some clarifying dates and clarifying language.
I would like to propose that we let staff and legal work through those items that we
brought up today before we make a recommendation to council so we know exactly what we're recommending
to council instead of trying to dictate from the dais what we might think we are meaning
by our work session concerns.
If I leave the public hearing open, we could postpone the item then to our next meeting
perhaps.
I think that might give staff enough time to work through those concerns.
We could look at it again as a full commission and then give a recommendation then.
So I'd like to open that up for thoughts of you all at this time.
Commissioner Cole, are you trying to press a button?
I can see you.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Chair.
I would be perfectly okay with that.
I think that's a good idea.
Well how about with that, I'm going to move that we do leave the public hearing open.
We postpone this item to a date certain of our next meeting, which is March 20th.
Commissioner Cole?
I second.
Okay.
First and a second to postpone to our next meeting of March 20th.
Any other discussion on that?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote, please.
That motion will carry 5-0.
Thank you.
I think we had good discussion and look forward to being able to move that forward eventually.
Okay.
That will take us to our planning and zoning matrix, and I'll go ahead and give the floor
to Tina.
Thank you, Chair Ellis.
So with respect to the matrix, given the presentation that we received this evening, it was the
second item regarding providing an overview to the planning and zoning commission on how
land use decisions affect debt and sustainability goals.
If you all concur, I feel like we took care of that this evening and there's nothing more
needed on that front.
So we'll go ahead and update and remove that.
In terms of other items that I typically update you on, so zoning action cases from City Council
since we last met, the St. Mark's Plan Development District Amendment did return to City Council.
The applicant made some additional refinements to their plan as a result of some additional
neighborhood engagement work that they had done.
So they relocated a portion of the parking that was originally proposed on the northwest
portion of the site to the southeast portion of their site near their future education
building.
And so shifted some of that parking and then with respect to the drive location, the drive
location has since returned back to its original location from the plan.
So with the result of those changes, the neighborhood was much more supportive of that.
And so council was able to approve that request and so that item has been approved.
Moving on to our southeast area plan.
So we continue to do engagement.
The team has been out doing some intercept surveys last week and will continue that effort
this week.
I believe I may mention possibly that the steering committee for this project met back
on February 15th and they received the strategies that are being proposed.
If you are interested and want to see that full slide deck or PowerPoint deck, we do
have that information, I believe, published on our Discuss Denton webpage for that particular
project.
Those strategies will be presented to the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council
at your upcoming joint meeting on March 19th.
And again, that's 11 o'clock and we'll provide you lunch for that.
So I know last week, thank you for coming in for our special called meeting where you
receive the existing conditions from MIA.
So we'll do a light touch on some of those key findings on that March 19th meeting for
council's benefit and we'll issue a Friday report directing council to that discussion
that took place should they want to go back and watch that video.
So we continue moving forward with that project.
We are targeting, I believe, an adoption hopefully by the end of May as it relates to that particular
project.
So we're making good progress and working with the community.
The advisory group has been or steering committee has been very helpful for us as it relates
to that project as well as we appreciate your feedback and input.
So we feel like we're making some good progress there on that particular project.
And then something that I failed to mention previously, so I don't know if you noticed
when Angie introduced herself, she has a new title in this title happen, gosh, was it before
Christmas holidays or after November.
So my apologies for not bringing to your attention that we promoted Angie back at that time frame.
So we have promoted her to our development review manager and obviously you can see with
the work that she's done as well as Matt also working closely with her on short term
run.
This present or this promotion is very well deserved.
So Mia's not here this evening, but Mia has also been promoted.
So Mia has been promoted to a senior planner.
So I'm delighted to be able to acknowledge the talent that we have in-house and being
able to offer promotions where they've been truly earned both by Angie and Mia.
So excited to be able to share that with you.
And again, my apologies both to Angie and the commission though for not recognizing
her in their promotion efforts.
So but again, both Haley and I are very pleased with the success of our team and the professional
growth that they've had.
So I wanted to make sure I recognized them.
But that concludes my report.
So happy to address any questions you may have or if there's any additional items that
need to be added to the matrix.
- Anything for the matrix?
Concluding items.
Commissioner Villarreal.
- Just want to remind folks that early voting for the primaries concludes this week.
You can vote tomorrow and Friday at the Civic Center seven to seven.
And then Tuesday is election day at the vote of your precinct location from seven to seven.
- Appreciate that.
Thank you.
Any other concluding items?
I'll go ahead and give a shout out to Angie.
Congratulations.
I did notice your title change as you were speaking.
Yes, we can give a round of applause.
And to me, I noticed that last time when she spoke.
And congratulations to you for growing your team and supporting your team, which is super
important.
We appreciate all the hard work that you do.
Okay.
With that, I'll go ahead and adjourn at 7.04 p.m.
Thank you very much.