>> Good afternoon and welcome to the City of Denton's planning and zoning commission
meeting for Wednesday, July 17, 2024.
This is our work session and with the quorum present I will call us to order at 5.02 p.m.
Let the record show that Commissioner Thaggard is absent at this time.
First item on our work session agenda is the clarification on tonight's agenda.
We have just public hearings today, so I'll go ahead and call up to ACA240002.
That is Julie's and we'll see if anyone has questions.
Hi, Julie.
>> Hi.
I don't have a work session presentation unless you'd like to go over it, but I'm happy to
answer any questions that you may have regarding the plan.
We also have Chai Roos here to answer any questions as well.
Awesome.
Commissioner Pruitt.
>> What was your favorite part about the process?
>> You know, we learned a lot with the public engagement and I'll say that we've -- especially
public engagement is less about holding a meeting at a community center and expecting
the public to come to you.
And I think that was one of the biggest lessons learned with this plan is that we've got to
have boots on the ground in the community, getting in front of the community.
And I think that has been the most fun thing and just like we've made a lot of friends.
And so it's just been delightful getting to know the members of the community and being
with them over the last year.
>> That's great.
Thank you.
I'm a fan of popsicle engagement.
>> We are too.
>> That was a great question.
Anybody else?
I think we're just all so thrilled that we're at this stage of this plan.
It's so exciting.
>> We are too.
>> Yeah, I know.
>> All right.
Thank you.
>> Awesome.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next one would be 2B, DCA240008.
Keisha's here for -- just a quick little brief and we'll see if anybody's got questions
since our last time we visited with us.
>> Yes.
>> Did we -- I think we hammered things out last time.
>> Good evening.
Keisha Siriano, assistant planning director.
So tonight we'll be putting together the proposal to you all for the planning and zoning commission
adding the operational procedure for you to be able to reconsider agenda items.
This does still include the processes we discussed at the last work session where you would have
the option to have a -- whether the -- excuse me.
Whether the item is already publicly noticed to council, the timeframe for that versus if
it has not been a second timeframe for that, we are recommending approval of this item.
And I'm here if you have any questions before we go to public hearing.
>> Awesome.
Thank you.
Anybody have questions?
Thank you.
Great.
Thank you.
Okay.
Then we've got 2C, DCA 240009.
Erin's here for that.
Hello.
>> Good evening.
Okay.
Good evening, chair, members of the commission, Erin Stanley, assistant planner.
This is DCA-0009 proposed charter school amendments to the DDC.
So in the most recent legislative session, some changes were made to state statute regarding
charter schools.
House Bill 1707 requires that cities treat charter schools the same as they do public
schools if they meet certain criteria, and that is listed in the second sub bullet point
here being that if the charter school does not have any administrator, officer, employee,
or governing body member that benefits financially in any way, the city is required to treat
the school the same as they would a public school in terms of development regulations.
Currently, we would more so review charter schools as private schools.
So with this House Bill change, we wanted to propose some updates to the DDC to come
into compliance.
So the -- so staff is proposing the updates you see in the proposal section here.
Mainly we're creating a charter school use to our definitions and updating the table
of allowed uses, creating a use specific standard just to refer back to that second bullet here
about no financial gain, and then updating the parking requirements as well.
And staff is recommending approval as it complies with all of the criteria for code amendments,
and then I'll have a more detailed presentation for the main session.
>> Yeah.
Do we have time?
>> Mm-hmm.
Commissioner Pruitt.
>> Just to get out of the way so I'm not annoying later, I noticed that previous to this, the
public schools were permitted by right in the residential districts, and private schools
require an SUP.
Now that charter schools must be treated like public schools, why -- and obviously tonight
isn't the time to do this, but what's the reasoning for requiring an SUP just for private
schools, but not for charter or public schools?
>> Tina might want to speak on that.
I can give my answer, but you want to?
>> I can if you want me to.
So over the last several decades, or at least throughout my career, private schools traditionally
have been treated differently than public schools because public schools are governed
by a governmental organization, right?
They get their powers from the state, and we have very limited regulatory authority over
public schools.
It's different when it comes to private schools.
Private schools are not governed by a governmental organization, and so they are treated differently
from that perspective.
With private schools, you know, depending upon the community, some communities put additional
controls in place, such as a specific use permit to make sure that the operations associated
with the private school will be complementary to other businesses or uses and where they're
proposing to locate.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
That helps.
And then the -- because public schools are a separate government entity, and we don't
-- while we have descriptions of what we would like them to do in our zoning code, we don't
have regulatory control over some of them.
Is that the same as the charter schools are going to be?
Or do we still have plan approval, and they have to go through our process, even if they're
not just playing nice?
Does that make sense?
>> They would still go through a plan approval process, just like our public schools do,
right?
So public schools do submit zoning compliance plans to us and civil engineering plans, and
DISD is very good about doing that with us, and we work with them through our development
process, and typically they comply with the regulations.
When it comes to governmental operated and owned schools, like I said, they get their
powers from the state, so sometimes they don't always have to comply with our zoning regulations,
whereas private schools would.
And I would think with the charter schools -- and Erin, correct me if I'm wrong -- while
we have to treat them similar as we would public schools, the -- you know, if there
was a provision that they did not want to comply with, I think we would just have to
work through that and see what legal grounds we have to be able to enforce the provision.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Anything else for Erin at the moment?
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Okay, and that would get us through our agenda, so we've got one work session report today,
and that's 2A-PZ24131, Receive a Report, Hold a Discussion, Give Staff Direction Regarding
Amending the Development Code to Include Section 212, Affordable Housing Incentive Procedures.
>> Good evening, Commission.
My name is Leah Atkinson.
I'm the Housing Programs Coordinator on the Community Services Department.
It's happy -- I'm happy to see you again.
And today, we're here to talk about affordability incentives.
In summary, our staff's proposal is to update the Dutton Development Code to include Section
212, Affordability Incentive Procedures.
This amendment would introduce nine different development incentives, each of which offers
slight deviation from the standard DDC requirements.
Any residential development would have the option to utilize one or more of these incentives
in exchange for including affordability within that residential development.
This proposal is presented in alignment with a few different planning documents.
First and foremost, the Affordable Housing Strategic Toolkit, as well as City Council's
priority to foster economic opportunity and affordability, but also the Economic Development
Strategic Plan and the 2040 Plan.
So what is housing affordability?
I know I've discussed this with some of the commission in the past before, but just as
a refresher, housing is considered affordable if a household is spending 30 percent of their
income or less on their housing.
If you have a bit of brain space, I tend to recommend that you think about your household
and what a third of your income is in comparison to what you pay for your housing as a household.
So from a development perspective, affordable housing is designed to meet that threshold
for a household that's at 80 percent of the area median income or less, also known as
a low-income household.
There are three different categories within low-income households.
First is extremely low-income, those who are at 30 percent of the area median income or
less.
For a little bit of context here, I'd like to add a one-person household that's living
at that extremely low-income threshold is working full-time, making $11 an hour.
Just so you kind of have that wage comparison for yourself.
Sixteen percent of Denton households are extremely low-income.
Next, there's very low-income, between 30 and 50 percent of the area median income,
which accounts for 14 percent of Denton households.
And lastly, low to moderate income, which account for 18 percent of Denton households.
In total, that's 48 percent of households who are low-income in Denton, which is another
way of saying that nearly half of Denton households could qualify for affordable housing.
So what can we leverage to include more housing affordability in our city?
These are the incentives that staff are proposing, a 20 percent deviation from minimum yard and
setback requirements, building coverage requirements, minimum lot width, depth and area, those three
separate incentives, maximum building height.
As a note, that would not exclude, that would exclude building height in transition areas.
Those rules would still apply completely.
And then minimum unit size as a deviation.
And next, a 10-point reduction from the landscaping area point system.
And lastly, a parking reduction down to one spot per affordable dwelling unit.
Notably, that's not per dwelling unit.
In a mixed-income development where only 20 percent of the units were affordable, that
reduction would only apply to those 20 percent of units.
In exchange, the city would require this table of affordability for just one incentive.
Staff is proposing that the city require 20 percent of the units in the development be
held at affordable rates.
That's broken down further by those subcategories.
So five percent of the total units would be required to be rented to extremely low-income
households.
Ten percent would be set aside for very low-income households.
And that last five percent would be set aside for low to moderate-income households.
For just one incentive, the city would require a commitment of 20 years of that affordability.
And then that scales up, the more incentives that are used, with a maximum of 65 percent
of units for a total of 45 years.
In order to access these incentives, a developer would submit a request for affordability incentives.
Both development services and community services would review that application and approve
or deny it based on our written standards.
Then that application or that development would go through the typical development review
process, follow all the other steps anyone else would, just with this application attached.
And then finally, when everything is completed, prior to building permits being issued, both
the city and the developer will sign an affordability incentive program agreement.
That would outline all of the requirements for affordability.
It would also include deed restrictions to ensure terms are upheld, as well as outline
steps the city may take if terms are not upheld.
Community services department will be responsible for monitoring that development for the full
compliance period.
This is something we're very good at.
We've been doing it for a long time.
So we thought we'd take you through a quick example development of what this could look
like.
Some will say that Very Good Apartments Incorporated bought some land in Denton and they want to
build as many units as possible.
Right now they can only fit 15 units on there.
And they are required to build 21 parking spots.
Their cost per unit is about $172,000.
If we follow the traditional 1% rule, that puts their rents at $1720, which is not particularly
competitive for a small studio in Denton.
Additionally, none of our low-income households can afford that rate.
So what could their design look like if they utilized the parking incentive?
They could actually add six more units, building up to 21 units, and just adding four more
parking spots because they're utilizing that parking incentive.
The cost per unit would come down to around $160,000 and set that rent closer to $1,600,
which is a little bit closer to market rate for a new studio apartment in Denton right
now.
They would be required to hold units affordable.
So they would hold two units for low and moderate income households at $15.45 a month, three
for very low-income households at $9.66 a month, and two for extremely low-income households
at $5.80 a month.
Those rates would change year to year.
This is just for this specific example.
And meanwhile, their market rate units are still enjoying lower rents due to the shared
cost of land.
And meanwhile, the development is seeing increased monthly rent due to the increased units.
This development makes more financial sense for the developer and provides a greater benefit
to the community.
So our next steps throughout July and August will continue conducting public engagement,
talking to the community.
Depending on this commission's considerations and recommendation, we'll proceed to a public
hearing August 14th.
And pending a recommendation at that time and your direction then, we may proceed to
a public hearing with city council on September 17th.
I want to thank you all very much for your time and your consideration.
What questions can I answer?
Questions?
I guess the first thing that comes to mind, so these incentives, they're just going to
be approved at the staff level, right?
Correct.
So there's going to be no hearing process of that.
I'll go ahead and put those incentives up for easy reference.
Thank you.
Yes.
This would be approved at the staff level.
Oh, please, go ahead, Tina.
Tina, want to add something to that?
Yes.
So keep in mind, the public hearing process is available with the incentives being proposed
as part of a zoning ordinance amendment.
So we believe that one of the benefits that if the commission and ultimately council are
agreeable to allowing for this flexibility in the code for those projects that meet the
affordability requirement, then we've established that through a public hearing process to formally
amend the debt and development code.
And then with the approval ultimately by council, then we've acknowledged that these are acceptable
for the community.
By taking care of it this way and building it into the debt and development code, it
also helps with the development community saving time and money, particularly for affordability
projects because anytime a developer has to go through a zoning change process, that adds
time and money associated with the project.
So if we're trying to encourage more affordable housing occurring within our community, then
we're trying to look at ways that we can build some of that flexibility within the debt and
development code instead of them consistently having to go through some sort of zoning change
to a planned development district to get relief or potentially having to go thinking that
they might be able to go through the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which they would not
be able to meet the criteria that are associated with variances through the Zoning Board of
Adjustment.
So we feel like this is a good option to go ahead and address formally amending the code
doing the public hearing process at this time so that the code then already has the flexibility
built into it for affordability projects.
- Okay, and affordability projects now we just don't have a process for?
They're mainly through state things?
- So they just comply with our current zoning regulations.
So one of the things that we are trying to work on is we know, if you recall from some
of Leia's prior presentations, that we have an affordability housing issue that we're
trying to help address and we, the city, cannot address the affordability issue alone.
We need the private development community to be able to assist with providing those
housing options.
So one of the things that we've looked at is how can we offer some incentives to encourage
affordable units being provided within those developments.
So we looked at these options here that are being proposed forth and we felt like these
were some items that would be reasonable that could be accommodated within projects and
allow a developer to take advantage of it.
In exchange for this incentive being offered, they obviously have some performance obligations
that they have to meet as Leia outlined.
- Thanks, that was perfect, yeah.
- Thank you.
- I've learned from y'all.
- Okay, Commissioner Pradhan.
- Can you explain how y'all determine the percentage for each low-income category?
- Sure.
- On the number developed?
- Specifically on this table?
- Mm-hmm, yes.
- So this was generally set by the needs in our community.
We have a pretty large need for units at the very low-income level.
It's also a level at which rent is still competitive and attainable for a lot of our
households but does not entirely make a project's budget blow up and so we wanted to focus a
little bit on that but also make sure that we spread across the whole board.
If this is something that the commission has direction on, that's something staff can certainly
take back.
- Thank you.
- Mm-hmm.
Commissioner Prud?
- Thank you, Chair.
Thanks for all the great work.
I know we have a housing needs assessment that dictates how many affordable units we need
over the next five years or something like that.
Are we building to linearity on that or are we behind?
- Hi, Danny Shaw, Director of Community Services.
We are not technically behind because we've been having some success in the low-income
housing tax credit program which is really just funding from HUD that allows for affordable
development through the state.
So we're keeping up with the market rate and the affordable rental units in multifamily
but that's the only tool that we have and that was sort of why I came up to answer your
question earlier too is that's the only tool we have and that's not our tool.
It's the federal government's tool.
They have to go through a competitive process through the state.
So we are technically keeping up but we will be behind if we don't have these other tools
because out of last year's applications, only one got selected.
So it depends on how competitive they are in the state program to whether or not we're
even gonna get housing here and we had housing that was already in the queue to be built
up from 2016 on that are just now coming online.
So that's kept us up with our numbers so far.
- Okay, thank you.
And the proposed incentives, do we believe these are large enough to make developments
which are not LIHTC funded, pencil?
- That's the hope, yes.
I've run a few different kind of mock-up developments like the one that I showed you today and we
do find that these can be the difference between making a project work and not work but of
course we'll have to see what the development community says as well and that's part of
that public engagement we're currently conducting.
- Sure.
Is there a proposal on how to handle rounding of the percentages of units?
- So in our example I rounded up, that can be a detail that we work out throughout this
process, yeah.
- Okay, I'm not speaking for anybody else but my preference is to round down but requiring
a single number just so that we don't make it, we don't end up requiring a large project
size 'cause we know that has an impact, larger impact on neighborhoods and that sort of thing.
- Of course.
With this tool, would we have the ability to require accepting housing choice vouchers
within the market rate units?
- Within the market rate units, I don't believe that we have that written but we do have it
currently written in that in the affordable units we are requiring housing choice vouchers
to be accepted.
Did I misremember that?
- Yeah, well, yeah, excuse me, it'll end up applying across the board to the development
so we will, we'll make that, that's our goal to provide a couple and the same with a couple
of other tools that we're implementing where housing choice vouchers would have to be accepted
since the state restricts us from doing that in policy generally.
- Okay, yeah, I just, I don't know what our limitations are but I've read some research
that suggests that when acceptance of HCVs is limited, it can essentially fill people
in income restricted units which already had an approved HCV that they could have gotten
the funding from somewhere else and so I just want to make sure we're maximizing our opportunity
to use that HCV funding which is coming from a different bucket essentially.
Does that make sense?
- Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense in exactly where we're headed so with every tool where
we have the ability to negotiate and it's not set policy, so again, state law prohibits
us from source of income protection except for veterans so we have that currently in
our NDO ordinance that they have to accept it for veterans but this will allow us through
agreement process to require that in all development that accepts incentives from the city so that's
the plus of doing an incentive based program and we've already done that with our PFC,
our public facility corporation organization so we'll extend that to everywhere where we're
using any tool within our system.
- Okay, thank you and just a couple of comments, great job.
I would hope that we would revisit these percentages, maybe I don't know what the right frequency
is just to make sure that it's getting us where we need to and bump them up if necessary.
I would also say that it seems like a fairly tiptoeing in as far as the types of things
we're offering, I would be prepared to say look, we are five, 10 years behind, let's
do something big, let's say if you're gonna build in whatever the number is, 35% affordability,
you no longer need an SUP to do multifamily NSC zoning so thank you.
- Commissioner Villarreal.
- Thank you Chair and thank you for the presentation, just a quick question, I know in the presentation
you discussed monitoring them over the course of the period of affordability, could you
describe, I don't know if y'all have decided this yet, what the potential penalties would
be if they violated that during that 20, 30, 40 year period?
- That hasn't been decided on firmly yet but we can speak a little bit to other things,
I know TDHCA has a penalty that's 25 dollars per unit of the entire development as a fee,
we might try experimenting with that and see do we think that has enough teeth for us,
do we think it has too many teeth for us, we'd probably start looking at other examples
and go from there, yeah.
- Have you had any discussion yet prior to this with the development community?
- Yes, yeah we have of course, we've certainly had these discussions with affordable developers
that we do have relationships with already but we also presented this at the developer
town hall a couple weeks ago, appreciate the invitation to that, so yes and we expect those
conversations to continue.
- What has feedback been?
- Parking incentive is incredibly desired, do you have anything to add to that?
- That's fair, that's the one they feel like makes the most bang.
- Yes but we do hear that these others could work in specific development situations as
well.
- And Leah, you're also making this information available during the pre-application conferences
on residential developments also to let folks know that we were gonna be proposing this,
correct?
- We are doing that on residential pre-application since it's got scheduled, yes.
- And then what is the plan for July and August public engagement, what are you doing?
- We'll be continuing to get out in the community, we'll go to the different nonprofits and things
like that, we'll schedule out meetings with further developers which you've already had
a few of and then we'll probably take some guidance from planning as well and we know
that they have a lot of success with public engagement so we'll take a few notes from
their book as well.
- And then we're seeing this again?
- Yes, so should you give us the direction we will bring this back for public hearing
and I believe the date that we said, I'll scroll back to the end so I don't get the
wrong one, it was August 14th, I remember that now.
So yeah, the earliest date that we could come back for a public hearing would be August
14th.
- It'd be August 14th for our recommendation.
- Correct.
- Given that this is a new topic, we wanted to be able to do a work session discussion
first to be able to introduce it to you to see if you had any questions, concerns, comments,
and especially if there were any comments that we needed to incorporate in the proposed
draft ordinance before we brought it back in a formal public hearing.
- Okay.
I mean, I'd almost like to see it again before that, after the public engagement 'cause I
feel like seeing it just now for the first time where we're all kind of like, okay, we
think it looks good but maybe we need to tweak these numbers and then you're gonna have some
public engagement and then we're gonna see it again August 14th and you're gonna want
a recommendation and we're gonna say, well, you know, I mean, is there a way to sneak
in another one of these?
I don't know if that would work with the timeline but I feel like we'd be better prepared to
know what we're actually recommending on the 14th than going from today to whatever your
public engagement is gonna be and then we're gonna see it on the 14th and I don't know
where we're gonna be then, I guess is what I'm saying.
- Yeah.
Yeah, you got it.
- We're open to that feedback.
We've been a bit on a delay so the conversation about being behind in units, we're behind
in getting this in front of you and so we really do have the goal to get this moving
as quickly as possible now because we've been waiting a long time to get in front of you
to talk about this so we'd hope to do it as fast as possible but we'll take your feedback
and I hear that you wanna hear what the development community is saying as well for that consideration
so if that's your direction, we will certainly push for that.
- Yeah, I'm just thinking maybe our meeting before that, I don't know exactly what our
calendar looks like, I don't have it in front of me.
- We do not have another planning with the exception of next week and our agenda's pretty
full on that.
Our next meeting would be August 14th for the Planning and Zoning Commission so if the
commission was wanting to see this again.
- Hello, Angie.
- I think Angie's got something to add so I'll defer to her, I think she's looked at
the calendar.
- I think Angie has something to say, I'm sorry.
- Sometimes when Tina ignores me, I act like a cat.
Angie Manglis, Development Review Manager, just in looking with the calendar briefly
with Haley and hearing some of the discussion and kind of ran it by Leah briefly, I think
one option could be to look to hold a town hall similar to what we did with short-term
rentals hopefully between now and maybe the 14th so that item could be discussed again
and workshopped again and then we could possibly look at moving that public hearing back to
the 28th.
It does look like there could be some flexibility in the schedule to work with some of the dates
in August but to possibly allow for something similar to, and we obviously just talked about
it right now so I would work out with them what that would look like but that could be
an option that we look at doing.
- I don't know how the rest of the commission feels but I think it would be nice to see
again and it looks like we've got a month in between when we would hear it August 14th
and when it would go to City Council on the 17th of September that maybe we could play
with those dates even.
Hello Scott.
- Hi, Scott McDonald, Director of Development Services.
I might offer off a suggestion from Haley whether we can get in front of the Dallas
Builders Association which we likely could do so I'll make that contact then additionally
we're going to put together another group similar to one that was formed a while back
so we're going to have several developers, several local engineers, several local or
a couple architects, couple of home builders, couple commercial builders and we're going
to have a group that we're just going to kind of work through all of our issues with so
we get more feedback.
We have town halls, we don't get the feedback that really we want so in light of really
some of this conversation, what we're doing in conjunction with that and you know that
potential for a town hall we can probably solicit some good feedback through that group
that is forthcoming.
- Yeah, that's great.
Okay.
Commissioner Crick.
- Yeah, I mean if there's an opportunity to share it again and get some feedback I think
that's fine.
I know you have to take the temperature of council and see what their desire is but I'd
be interested to know how much of a benefit they would see being able to build multifamily
in SC would be in the SC zoning district.
Just because I'm not a real estate lawyer put me at ease that we're going to be able
to make sure there's something in the closing packet for buyers of properties that says
this has this restriction and you know this.
- Yes, our team is already working with Hillary and Scott and our awesome legal team on that,
yes.
- Thank you.
- Anything else?
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Okay, that will conclude our work session so I'll go ahead and adjourn us at 5.35 p.m.
and we will reconvene for our regular meeting at 6.30 in council chambers.
Thank you.
- Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting
for Wednesday, July 17th, 2024.
With a quorum present, I will call us to order at 6.30 p.m.
I'll let the record show that Commissioner Thaggart is absent from today's meeting.
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.
We've just got a few public hearings on our agenda tonight.
The first one is 2A CA240002.
I will invite Julie up for presentation and open the public hearing.
Hello, Julie.
- Hello.
Good evening.
All right.
We are, I'm Julie Wyatt.
I am principal planner with the City of Denton and we are delighted to present the Southeast
Denton area plan to you this evening.
I have the project team with us so, well, one is virtual.
So Mitchell Silver, he worked on the plan with us.
He's done a lot of our public engagement.
He unfortunately couldn't be here tonight, so he is zooming in.
So I'm hoping I do this correctly and I don't hang up on him, but he'll be speaking with
you in just a few minutes.
I also have Shy Ruse here who also worked on the plan with us, Mia Hines who worked
on the plan and she's been my fearless, she's keeping me in line.
So this has, the Southeast Denton area plan is a consolidation of what we have heard from
the community over the last year.
We've been in the community since March of 2023 and so, and so this really is a culmination
of that effort.
Tonight we're going to give a brief project overview and present some highlights of the
plan.
I know we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but we did go over all the implementation
steps with the steering committee and that was a three and a half hour meeting.
We're not going to do that to you tonight, but we do want to make sure that we hit the
highlights of the plan and answer any questions that you and the community may have regarding
it.
Your role tonight is to receive the presentation and take action with hopefully a recommendation
of approval to go on to city council next Tuesday.
The plan was endorsed by the steering committee and it really shouldn't be a lot of new information
for you tonight.
It really is just the plan in total is what we're looking at tonight.
Before I turn it over to Mitchell, I have a couple of things I just want to talk about.
In April of 2022, council directed staff to begin an area plan for Southeast Denton.
There were several reasons for that.
First, to acknowledge that generational trauma that resulted from the forced displacement
of Quaker Town, as well as subsequent city actions.
Residents concerns about displacement due to development within Southeast Denton.
We wanted to identify areas that the community cherishes and wants to preserve, but also
identify areas that they may be open to change or want to see change.
Then finally, areas or places for public investment and improvements, things like parks, transportation.
That's really what the purpose of the plan was.
It began with a conceptual study area of 600 acres with McKinney to the north, Woodrow
to the east, Shady Oaks, Teasley and Dallas Drive to the south, and then Bell Avenue to
the west.
We talked with the community, found out what they thought about that boundary and how they
felt about it, and added a little more area.
We expanded that boundary a little bit to include a transition.
An additional 375 acres to that 600 acres.
That's because we want to make sure any development near Southeast Denton, that it's addressed
sensitively both in use and scale.
We know that what happens on one side of the street can affect the other side of the street,
and we want to make sure we take that in consideration.
With that, if all goes well with technology, I'm going to turn it over to Mitchell Silver,
if he can hear me.
I can hear you.
All right.
I'm going to forward the slides for you.
Hi, Mitchell.
All right.
Thank you, Julie.
Well, first, thank you for setting up the purpose of this planning effort.
I just want to say what a privilege it's been to work with both the planning staff and the
residents and stakeholders in the Southeast Denton area, but want to share with you the
community engagement.
Here are just some images, but it's so critical that we actually reach as many people as possible.
This was a very, very thorough engagement process, and some of those conversations were
uncomfortable if you read into the purpose of the plan.
We held stakeholder meetings and steering committee meetings.
We held very specific listening sessions to unpack some of the past harm that occurred
in Denton.
Because we felt we needed to hear more voices, we did intercept surveys, which is basically
going out to the community to capture some of those comments.
We had a visioning workshop and preference surveys and an implementation workshop to
make sure all departments are on board with the action items.
Next slide, please.
We just wanted to share with you what we've heard.
We did share this information before.
Julie captured it quite well, but the residents really want to improve communication between
the city and the community.
They really wanted to maintain some of these cherished assets as they see Southeast Denton
changing.
The history was so important, and also want to remember the lessons of Quaker Town, concerned
about long-term affordability, about infrastructure, but really, really start this process of beginning
the healing process for this community.
What we heard really drove into the community goals, and as you can see, we came up with
six goals that really guided the strategies and actions going forward.
Next slide, please.
What we really enjoyed, and this was really put together by the steering committee, is
a vision for Southeast Denton.
And I have to say it's quite moving that our vision really is for Southeast Denton to be
a harmonious future that ensures diverse, resilient, and inclusive community for generations
to come.
And they really wanted to cultivate trust with the city, to cherish and preserve the
rich black history and culture, discourages gentrification, ensures shared prosperity,
and elevates the overall quality of life through strategic investments.
Next slide.
So, I'll share some of the plan highlights of some of those both goals and recommendations.
Next slide.
In terms of the goal of building trust within the community and with the city as a whole,
strategy really 1.1 is to develop and implement an anti-displacement action plan specific
to Southeast Denton.
And there's a series of action items and recommendations, but really to fund and support eviction prevention
program, pre-approved ADA designs, and ensure equitable appraisals, and actually help people
appeal some of those appraisals that those that live there won't be forced out.
1.2 is to develop a communication strategy specific to Southeast Denton.
People want to stay in the know, and so there are action items about how we can develop
that communication strategy.
And then recruit more participants in the Denton 360 program for Southeast Denton.
We want to make sure people are engaged, educated, and knowledgeable about all the resources
and programs in the city.
Next slide.
In terms of goal number two of honoring the culture and heritage of Southeast Denton,
we all recognize it's changing, but it's important that we both use historic preservation
tools and incentives to recognize the built environment and the families who created it.
Those sacred places and spaces and stories need to be acknowledged and recognized, so
there are strategies to do just that.
And then strategy 2.2 to develop and implement a Southeast Denton history and cultural rules
program by creating this cultural district to acknowledge Southeast Denton's places and
families who created it and used that cultural district to honor past residents and all cultures
who call Southeast Denton home.
So that includes both Black and Hispanic residents.
So those are the two slides I'm going to share, and now I'll turn it over to Shai to talk
about the other highlights and strategies.
Thank you, Mitchell.
So I'm going to go ahead and talk about strategy 4.2.
So this goal 4 is strengthen neighborhoods and housing affordability.
I'm trying to see, yes, you all can see this map is the existing land use map, future land
use map in your Denton 2040 plan.
And then on the other side is the proposed Southeast Denton land use map.
So the main reason for creating this is to address some of the community concerns about
the downtown style development coming into the community.
And you can see that bright and the existing bright reddish color is the downtown land use.
What we've done on this side is where it joins the community, we're asking it to be changed
to neighborhood mixed use.
That's a little closer and a good transition into the residential area, which was also
something the community told us was which areas they wanted to be stable and preserve,
which could do with some change.
So inside the community wanted to keep their residential, it's single family, they've got
duplexes, they've even got fourplexes, but it's literally, it looks like a nice single
family neighborhood, so they wanted to keep that.
So that's a transition between, and you'll notice on, we've marked the main changes in
dotted blue line.
So the institutional change today, we're putting community mixed use on there.
And one of the reasons is the county, in case in the future, when they look at their facilities
plan, if they feel like they might want to redevelop, then this will give them the chance
to look at, oh, okay, how can we redevelop?
But only if they want to, of course, it's their property.
But we wanted to give them some direction if they changed their mind.
And then in the south, it always was community mixed use, and we just, on the other side
of the road, as you can see here, it is community mixed use.
So we just talked about how a roadway has its own character.
And so both sides would probably benefit from having similar uses.
So that's why this happened.
So that's the land use.
And then the next strategy is to establish overlay districts to protect the existing
neighborhood scale and character.
Again, there's four overlay districts that we're recommending in this plan, and the main
reason, again, is the community's desire to keep the community affordable, to not have
displacement.
And so as you can see, the first is in that yellow area is the residential overlay.
And the main purpose of that residential overlay is to ensure the scale.
So right now, it's two stories, kind of keep that scale of two stories, keep that scale
of residential, small residential footprints, so that even when developers come, they would
have to build to that if there was an overlay on there.
And then there's the height overlay, where we talked about next to the downtown land
use, we recommended a height overlay that's in blue, and that's a transition.
Currently, the downtown area allows maybe six stories.
This residential may allow two or three stories.
So how do you connect that?
So that's a height overlay in that neighborhood mixed use area that can help transition.
The third's an interesting, that pink area we see around Y, Robertson and Prairie.
That's a live work overlay, and that comes out of the community's desire.
So a lot of people very fondly remember the days when they had barbershops and neighborhood
type small businesses that people could hang out in that area.
But now that area is also, so this was the challenge, right?
The area has a very well established single family neighborhood right there.
So one of the ways we can do this is through the live work overlay, where people can have,
the structures would have to resemble, be compatible with the residential overlay structures,
but they could have a business in one part of the house while they live in the other.
So that's a requirement.
Hopefully, if you're living in that same house, you're not putting businesses that are disruptive
to living in the area.
So that was the idea of the live work, is people could get their neighborhood type uses,
get that street environment, but at the same time not disrupt residential.
And then the fourth is the commercial overlay, you can see in the south where we have community
mix use as the future land use, but there's a lot of industrial right now there.
So if that starts changing, the commercial overlay will help emphasize that compatibility
with the neighborhood and the uses around it to kind of bring it down in intensity a
little, but keep an eye on how it is doing it.
So those are the four main overlays.
So between the future land use recommendation and the overlays, the whole purpose is to
make sure the area develops the way the community wants to see it.
And then there's the goal six was about creating safe and connected multimodal travel system.
6.1 is improve street network to prioritize connectivity and multimodal connections.
So the main purpose of this strategy is enhance street connections.
Under this goal, we have many strategies and this is one, which is enhance the street connections.
Currently, as you can see, there aren't many connections to Woodrow or south to Shady Oaks
from this neighborhood.
So that's one of the recommendations.
The other is to make these orange dots that you all see are intersections.
And these were literally marked out by the people in the visioning workshop, people who
have had issues biking or walking in this area.
That was the main thing that came out is the roadways were intimidating for bikers and
for pedestrians and they wanted safe intersections and safe streets for biking and pedestrians.
So you can see some of the drawings here, we can create these kind of intersection designs
that slow down, have protected bike lanes.
Those are some of the recommendations, but one interesting is if you look at this where
my browser is in the south, there is homes right now, so we didn't show any connection
streets there, but there is a recommendation that if there is over five acre development
coming in, then they have to look at creating public street connections in that area.
So hopefully that will take care of it.
If that area were to get redeveloped, it would get redeveloped the way people want it, but
also with this added recommendation, we would get new connections through the new development.
So with that, I will pass on to Julie.
Okay, so just to wrap this up, the next steps.
So we have a public hearing tonight.
Of course, we're looking for a favorable recommendation to go to city council next week.
If that's the case, it would go to city council next week for adoption.
If approved, this would amend our comprehensive plan, especially those future land use elements
and those goals and strategies associated with it, and that concludes the presentation.
I will be happy to answer any questions, and Shai and Mitchell will be happy to answer
any questions as well.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
At the moment, I don't see any questions for you all, but stand by.
All right, thank you.
This is a public hearing.
I do have a couple of cards in front of me at the moment.
The first one I have is Donald McDade, are you wishing to speak?
You'll state your name.
Your time will begin.
Hi.
Good afternoon, Commission.
My name is Donald McDade.
I live at 926 East Prairie, and I wasn't really watching the screen, but I'm curious if you
actually showed the type of homes that the committee had approved for that area.
Did y'all actually show that?
So the neighborhood can see?
It's in the plan.
Is that a plan that they can see, or what plan?
I'll find out if there is a slide that we can pull up for that.
Okay.
But I'm actually here in support of the plan, but with a caveat.
The caveat is I'm here to support the plan as it's presented July 17th, 2024.
I know we're looking at the 2040 plan that's 16 years away.
A lot of the neighborhood is skeptical because of homeowners like myself who are 60 and 70
and 80 plus.
You're looking at 16 years, and that's one thing that the city has that we don't, and
that's all the time in the world.
Our biggest concern is, and I'll use me as an example, they talk about not forcing people
out, that there's a lot of ways to force people out.
I built my home in 2008.
It only cost me $108,000.
Here it is, 2024, my home is worth over $300,000.
That's a lot.
My taxes have pretty much tripled, and I think that's what everybody's issue is, and I haven't
added one new brick to my home, but yet my value has tripled.
So God forbid, I'm no longer here in the next few years.
My children are going to have to suffer that burden because they're not old enough to get
a home exemption.
They're not going to be able to pay all those taxes, and what's the next best thing?
Just go ahead and sell it and get out from under.
That's my biggest concern.
I was also skeptical about this plan, I don't see this plan going through in the next 16
years.
I mean, I hate to say it, but as I sat on the board and I heard other communities come
and say what they presented to us, it's not what we got.
I can actually see that happening here because for years, we wanted a lot of changes in Southeast
Denton, and we never got it.
But when they came to do the beautification and all the road, we were the first one that
they came to, and I've already told them, when you want to sell something, you don't
leave it as is, you beautify it so when they come, they have something to look at.
So this is going to be the new downtown, they came, they beautified the area, now they can
go back and they can sell it.
That was my biggest concern, and I'm pretty sure that's a concern of everybody here because
the last 50 years, I remember when the roads weren't even paved, and I'm only 60 years
old.
That's 1964.
Now, they're coming in and they're putting in new drainage, new streets.
That's not for us.
That's what's coming down the road.
I wish it was for us, but we all know it's not.
So they're trying to sell it, it may already be sold, we just don't know.
As I say, my biggest concern is, and I've said it all along, is I've always wanted to
just say, hey, come in, say what you mean, mean what you say, the last 100 years, you
talk about distrust, I don't really see that changing, I tell people all the time, I do
believe that the contracts here are written in pencil and in visible ink.
Because I hear so many people say, that is not what we ask for, but we were presented
something different, and I just don't see that changing.
The first few years, 100 years, nobody lives in the southeast, and I really don't see that
changing.
Thank you.
Yeah, Julie, I don't know if you had that slide in there or not.
I'm going to pull up a copy of the plan, if that...
It's thinking.
Oh, great.
I'm going to pull up a copy of the plan, if that's what you're saying.
I'm sorry, my computer is a little slow, it's bringing it up, but I had a suggestion in
your recommendation, you can ask us to add a page of those pictures right after the overlay.
It's a good strategy where we recommend the overlay or the action step that talks about
the overlay, we can add a full page of pictures that the community chose.
I have no idea how to connect it to this, because my computer won't allow it.
If we can make it work, there we go, there you go, perfect.
Perfect.
These are the type of housing that the community had chosen.
As you can see, these are the pictures the community was shown and they chose.
We have the books that have the blue and the yellow dots, and so we can add the photos
in this report that the blue dot is the one the community likes.
So each of the house that they like, we can put it in here with the action step does say
that they would write the overlay regulations to make those kind of houses happen.
Thank you for answering that question, appreciate it.
Should I remove this?
You can leave it there for now while we're talking about it, if you'd like.
That will remind us to add that little amendment.
Okay, I do have another card here.
It's Willie Sellers.
Hi, if you'll give us your name, your time will begin.
Hello.
Yeah, Willie Sellers, 930 Sky Drive, Denton.
Hey, I share some of the same concerns that Mr. McDay has, talking about the steering
committee that you set up, or Ms. Julie set up.
Who was on the steering committee?
Was it just nothing but city employees and those type of people?
Because I look up, I pull this up, and it says the agencies, it has acronyms.
And then all of the acronyms within this brochure right here are people that work for the city.
And there are no people on those steering committees or, and it says external partners,
appraisal district, one of the same things he was talking about.
The appraisal district can appraise you out of your home, you know, because they continue
to raise the value.
I noticed some of these bullets on here, and I noticed that you had NRSA, and I said that's
the neighborhood revising strategies, strategy area.
On this, I looked in here, and on action 4.2, it says coordinated with the facility, facility
planning efforts to ensure land use is designed to use county property and compatible with
surrounding neighborhood.
So does the county own property within southeast Denton?
I know it's 972 acres.
That's a question that I have for you also, so you can answer that.
And it was also in action 6.2, it says improve safety and install ADA compliance, pedestrian,
I guess crosswalk, et cetera, for bail and bikini and stuff like that.
So when I look at the structure that you had there for bike trails, et cetera, et cetera,
and he mentioned that the people are going to be 80, 60, 70 years old.
Those people are not going to be able to use those type of investments that you want to
implement in southeast Denton.
But the only thing that I can see southeast Denton is it's probably a microcosm of what
happened in Quaker Town.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not in opposition of improvement.
But the improvements have to have a value added for the remaining people that are going
to be there that can't go anywhere else.
Because as he stated, the property is going up, up, and up.
And say if you sell your house for whatever his value was, and that value, you go try
to purchase that same home somewhere else, that home is going to cost more.
You're not going to be able to purchase a home of the same square footage, et cetera.
And these models up here, they're okay.
They're tiny homes.
Another thing about southeast Denton, I see southeast Denton being targeted as a habitat
humanity area, and I talked to Ms. Hines about that.
And I shared with her the only thing that I think that southeast Denton is, is that
it's the cheapest land in Denton currently.
So therefore, you can target at that for southeast Denton for habitat humanity homes.
I don't know why you wouldn't take it out by 288, out there by Collins Stadium, nice
area, plenty of land, but you targeted southeast Denton.
Another thing that I noticed, the downtown area is going to be the Mecca for Denton.
It's moving this way.
You can't go north, T.W. owns all that.
You can't go west because you got the historical district and you have UNT that owns everything
behind.
So you got to come get us.
You got to come.
No problem.
So what I'm saying is that you're going to create an additional problem because whenever
you put concrete down, water would take the path of least resistance, which is going to
be, it's going to run real fast.
So until you do all the drainage, and I noticed you got the drainage in here.
You got drainage installed in here, but you're going to have to take some things from people
to make drainage, Mr. Matalock's house, the corridor behind, Clara's Kitchen, Mount Pilgrim.
Those things are going to have to go away.
I know you are, I see you already identified some areas that are, that are sacred, Carl
Jean Park, the cemetery, Martin Luther King Center, et cetera.
But what are the targeted areas, what are the targeted areas that you are going to assume
or consume for your project with this?
Because you know, everybody knows where they are, but you're not sharing it with us.
So we can start making plans to do what we have to do.
Okay, Mr. Matalock, your time is up, so I'll let you just wrap up here and we'll get some
of your questions answered.
Oh, I didn't hear, I didn't hear.
Yeah, the bell didn't go off.
The timer went off a couple of times, but I'm not sure what happened to the bell.
So that's why, if you wanted to wrap up real quick.
Okay, yeah.
Well, the thing that, you know, you said the steering committees and you know, this, the
only way that I heard about this meeting and heard about any meetings going forward was
I passed by the bridge down here on Robertson Street where you got Ms. Minners and Ms. Carl
Pitcher hung up, it was a little teeny-wee side there, and I QR-coded, my son, he QR-coded
too.
He and I started hashing.
What is this?
First I heard of it.
So would you give us some insights, I mean, bring the people up to date, because you talked
to a few people and those people are not a representation of the entire Southeast Indian
area.
I'm done.
Thank you, Mr. Sellers.
Julie, I'll have you come up here for just a minute, because I want to get a couple of
things kind of straightened out.
First of all, there's a steering committee.
It is in the plan under acknowledgments of who all of those people were.
There was tremendous community engagement for a very long time, and I think you said
at the beginning of your presentation, so yeah, if you want to maybe, what page is that?
Yeah, page three.
Page three.
Yeah.
If we could have the screen back on the...
Oh yeah, we can get the eye in the sky gone and do the other.
Thank you, Julie.
There we go.
It's a little small.
Yeah, there it is.
So it's a little hard to read, but yeah.
So the steering committee is listed, and certainly there have been much engagement there.
So I think I want to back and just try to clarify what it is that we're discussing.
So we're discussing a small area plan for Southeast Indian.
So it's not anything that is planned out with specifics of certain development that is happening
right now, but what this is is a guiding document.
That's what this is, and it's really very well done, very thought out, and it is there
to protect, to preserve, and to grow the area the right way through the engagement that
has been done.
That's what this is, is a guiding document for development and preservation as we go
forward.
So to answer the other questions, is there county property?
And the answer is yes.
Yes.
Let me get back to the presentation that might get to the future land use map.
This property here, there at the intersection of Woodrow and McKinney, there's a large county
facility there with courts and the Juvenile Justice Center and the Adult Justice Center,
I believe.
So they have a lot of facilities there.
They have a lot of open land too.
Right now, we're not aware of the county moving facilities.
The intent of the future land use map was to imagine, this is probably better.
Right now, our current future land use map shows that just as a county facility.
We wanted to imagine if in 30 years the county decided to move their operations off to the
loop or somewhere else, what kind of uses would go there?
And so that really was the intent of that new symbology on this proposed Southeast Denton
future land use map and to show that right now it's a government facility, but in the
future it could be a shopping district or additional housing.
So a lot of opportunities there potentially in the future.
So it's this large area right here.
That's what Shy had pointed out when she was presenting.
And so again, like in the guiding document that we're talking about here, so it's county
owned now, it's theirs, but if for some reason it's not, it's in the guiding document now
what does the neighborhood want it to be?
What should it be if it gets developed down the road, if the county decides that they
don't want it?
We've got something here in place that can guide the future development.
Should that be something that comes back to the city that can be developed?
Did I explain that properly?
Yeah.
Okay.
I do have, I'm sorry Tina, did you have something to add to that?
If you would like to, yeah, go right ahead.
So in order to address some of the other comments were made, I want to offer some clarification.
So as Julie pointed out, one of the reasons why city council directed us to do this project
is that we realize that the city as an organization's relationship with the residents of Southeast
Denton in the past has been very challenged, right?
When you think about the events of 100 years ago when the city itself as an organization
forced the relocation of the prominent African-American community in Quaker town to Southeast Denton,
we know that those stories have been passed down generation upon generation as if those
events just happened here recently.
So the city made the commitment that yes, we need to do this community plan and hear
from the community as to what people who live within the community today, what they want
for themselves as they continue to reside in the community, as well as persons who may
want to move into Southeast Denton.
The comments with respect to regarding the infrastructure being made, that the infrastructure
is being made for future residents, we the city have a responsibility to maintain our
infrastructure for all residents within the community, regardless of where you reside
within the community.
We have been behind on delivering on our infrastructure projects.
Our capital projects team has been working very diligently to get all of our projects
from our past bond programs that residents like yourself have supported so that we can
get those improvements done.
One of the things you'll find in the document and we learned this about the community is
many times people think of Southeast Denton as being an area of our community where we
have many elderly people that are living and that we're not doing things for them.
When we look at the demographics of the Southeast Denton community, what we learned is 64% of
the residents who live in the Southeast Denton area are under the age of 40.
The Southeast Denton community is also a very young community.
So when we're making infrastructure improvements and we're talking about what the community
wants for itself longer term, we're also hearing from people that are in the younger age categories
that are wanting to continue to live in Southeast Denton and wanting to have nice things being
built for them within their community.
So that's another reason why we do the infrastructure improvements.
That's another reason why we talk to the community and find out, you know, where -- what kind
of improvements do you want to be made that we, the city, have the ability to influence
and be able to deliver.
Julie shared the slide that showed, you know, intersections where people need to have the
opportunity to have safer connections there.
You know, we tried to make sure that we put infrastructure in place that is safe for all
users regardless of what your age is.
Whether you're 8 years old or 80 years old, we want to ensure that we deliver safe infrastructure
and we do those infrastructure -- or that we do those intersection improvements.
We know that we have missing sidewalks within the Southeast Denton community.
We heard from the community a need to complete the sidewalks and provide those safer connections
for people who reside within the community.
That's why we have recommendations related to that and with the infrastructure.
The -- you know, so I know, you know, the comment was made that there's concerns regarding
this plan as invisible ink.
And so to help educate you all, you know, one of the reasons why we do these plans is
so that these plans get adopted and they provide the action items for us to begin working on.
We have to work with the community first to understand what the community wants in terms
of their vision for their community, their descendants, for their friends who may want
to move within to the neighborhood and be part of the community.
But we have to figure out what that community's vision is for the next 15 to 20 years.
And then we figure out what are the goals that we're trying to aspire to achieve.
And then we put action items in place.
So that's why this plan document, if you've had an opportunity to look at the hard copies
that are being passed around, have a series of action items that are within it.
The acronyms that are included within there that was spoken to.
So one of the things that this plan does, it focuses on what actions that we as a public
agency can take and to be able to help influence the delivering on those action items.
We've also identified partners because we realize there are some other agencies out
there that maybe can achieve the action item much better than what we, the city, can.
So how can we leverage those partnerships to be able to have the successful entities
being able to deliver what they do best?
So that's why when you see those acronyms in there, it's to be able to help identify
where those partners are because we know we, the city, cannot do it all.
The concern regarding property values.
We know that that's a concern of the residents.
One of the action items, and I think Mitchell had spoken to it, was with respect to working
with the central appraisal district to ensure that equitable property assessments are being
done.
Because we've heard from the community that my property values continue to increase, but
yet I've done nothing to my home.
I haven't moved one brick on my home.
I haven't made one improvement on the interior, but my property values continue to increase.
That's the situation all throughout Denton.
People are not able to make improvements to their home, yet their property values still
increase.
So one of the things that we want to work with the central appraisal district is that
when they are assessing properties, that they are actually putting eyes on the property,
but also being able to help educate the residents in getting you connected with programs to
be able to address and learn how you can appeal that appraisal of your property.
And so we looked at this from a holistic approach on what strategies that we can put in place
to be able to help the community.
I know comments were made regarding future development happening within southeast Denton.
One of the challenges, an opportunity and a threat within southeast Denton is the vacant
land that is there.
We know that property owners today may choose to sell their property and that is their decision.
Texas is a very property right state, so as residents within our community, you have the
ultimate say as to what you choose to do with your property, whether you choose to keep
it or you choose to sell it.
But one of the things we've heard from residents through all of the engagement that we've done
and all of the comments that we have received from residents within the southeast Denton
is people are very interested in staying in their homes and protecting the character of
their single family residential neighborhoods.
So the actions that we've put forth in this plan are designed towards what can we do in
actions that we can take to preserve the existing character of the neighborhood.
If the neighborhood is desiring all two story homes that are built of a certain architectural
style that's comparable to the architectural styles that exist within their neighborhoods,
then us, the city, being able to work with the neighborhood to put design requirements
in place so that whether you tear down your home and build a new home or you sell your
property to somebody else who decides to build a new home or you own a vacant lot and you
sell it to somebody who decides to build a new home, that that new home is built where
it fits in with the existing neighborhood fabric that's there and the existing neighborhood
character that's there today.
So when we talk about this plan is based upon what we've heard from the community and all
of our engagement efforts, it truly is and we're happy to visit with anybody and entertain
any more questions about it, but I know tonight's presentation is a high level summary of all
of the work that's been done.
I can assure you, Mitchell addressed all the public engagement events that we've done.
Our team has gone to Martin Luther King Center.
We've been to the American Legion.
We've done listening surveys where we've invited people within the community to come
and listen so that we can come and hear what you have to say.
We've utilized the steering committee who are representatives within Southeast Denton
to be able to help get the word out.
We've done traditional workshops.
We've also gone to restaurants and I told Julie and Mia and Shai, they've gone to restaurants
where people frequent in the Southeast Denton community and asking them in the 100 degree
heat, can we ask you a few questions?
We'd like to share some information with you to be able to get that feedback.
We've truly tried to go to the community, but also building relationships with the community.
We've provided updates with the Southeast Denton Neighborhood Association.
If you're involved with that, I know Ms. Collette leads those meetings monthly and has been
gracious with the Neighborhood Association's time in allowing us to be able to have the
opportunity to present to the neighborhood and update them on where we are on the project.
For those of you that are hearing about this for the first time, my apologies.
Would love to educate you more on what we've done and what we would like to do moving forward
with the community, but know that we've done an extensive amount of public engagement in
order to be able to ask the community what is it that you want for your neighborhood
for the next 15 to 20 years so that we can put a plan in place and have that ink in the
adopted plan so that it's not invisible, but to provide us that path for moving forward
as we implement the action items that we've heard from the community that they want.
Thank you, Tina.
I've got another card here to speak.
Charles Lee.
Good evening, if you'll give us your name and your time will begin.
Yes, my name is Charles Patrick Lee, and I just want to say this is really not going
to address the issue at all because the problem here, this is happening all over the country.
The problem is that's one of the reasons I'm not from here.
I'm from New Jersey, but it's happening all over the country because what it is, it's
really the federal government's problem because they're not balancing a budget and they keep
printing endless money, and that's why you have this gentleman over here is talking about
he bought a house for $100,000 and now it costs $300,000 because that's how much the
dollar has fallen in value, and it's going to keep falling in value until somebody in
Washington starts balancing a budget.
You guys stop spending all this money because all you're doing is spending more money and
people have to get more and more taxed, and it's just going to drive down property values.
I mean, it's just going to keep property values going up until nobody can pay it, and that's
what's going down because that's why I moved to Texas because I couldn't afford New Jersey
anymore.
The house my father brought maybe back in 1977 for maybe $85,000, it's going up over
a million dollars now in New Jersey.
So I got displaced, that's why I came to Texas because everything's more affordable.
And he's talking about a $300,000 house, I could barely afford that, and it's just going
to keep going, and you talk about this plan, this plan's not going to do anything.
The price is just going to keep going, going on up because the country's bankrupt because
nobody in Washington or anybody wants to live between their means and everybody's just spending
money recklessly and nobody wants to balance the budget, the budget hasn't been balanced
in Washington, I don't know since what, decades.
It's just more inflation on top of inflation, on top of inflation that's going to raise
the prices of everything up until everybody's bankrupt, and that's all I got to say.
I don't have any more cards in front of me, but this is a public hearing.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak?
This is Mitchell.
I'm sorry.
Hi Mitchell.
I first want to just thank Tina for her remarks.
Just want to add that I do this work all over the country, and I want to thank personally
the City of Denton for having the courage to do this work.
There's no question that as we listen to the community for over a year, and as I stated
these were some very uncomfortable conversations, those in the hearing room should know that
we listened and we listened carefully.
It wasn't just about addressing past harm, it was also about preventing future harm,
and so this plan does that.
It gives the policies and the actions to acknowledge what happened in the past, but also have policies
that really give protection and a path forward.
So again, just to put things in context, most cities around the country don't do this, and
so I just want to commend the City of Denton.
And the residents should understand that this is really important work being done, and very
proud that the stakeholders committee and the steering committee involved also endorsed
this plan because they were very intimate, very engaged with every aspect of this planning
process and ensured that we listened to the voices who came to meetings, but also all
the various intercepts to make sure as many voices were heard to help shape the future
of Southeast Denton.
Thank you, Mitchell.
Appreciate that.
Madam, did you want to come up and speak?
I'll just ask you a question.
Oh, come on up.
I'll call you up next.
Yeah, come on up.
My name is Karen Thomas.
Can you speak in microphone?
My name is Karen Thomas, 1212 McDonnell Drive.
I have a question about how much land Southeast Denton is losing in all of this?
There are some hash dotted lines going around and some, I would assume those are proposed
changes to draw the solid black line in.
I want to know when the city stopped working on all of these sidewalks that haven't been
completed, and where do all the Southeast Denton residents eat?
I'm also wondering about this new complex that seems to be going up when you're driving
down Duncan and you're going on to Lakey all the way down the street.
It used to be a church.
Now it's going to be some complex.
Then how much is the rent on those apartments going to be?
I don't know.
That's it.
Thank you.
Julie, I'll bring you up.
Just the first question, Thomas had, land we're losing, so there's no land being lost.
This is, again, a plan where an area has been drawn to consider it Southeast Denton, so
I'll have you elaborate on that if you could, please.
Correct.
We started out this planning process with a conceptual boundary, and that's that McKinney
to Woodrow, Shady Oaks, Dallas Drive, and then Bell.
We talked to the community about what the community thinks of when they think of Southeast
Denton and where is that?
It was an iterative process that we started with the visioning, so we actually had community
members just really draw, and then we took those maps and we amalgamated them to create
some conceptual maps about what the other community members would think is Southeast
Denton, and then we went back to the community with those maps and had the community vote.
Really that's how we ended at this core boundary of that 600 acres within the transition area,
which is the Hatchmark, and really that transition area is intended to ensure that any development
would be sensitive to the needs and the goals and the vision of Southeast Denton, so it
doesn't pull anything out of Southeast Denton, it really is expanding that area kind of influence
of Southeast Denton.
Thank you.
I don't know anything about the Duncan and Lakey thing, and if you don't, maybe you can
just get with her off.
I believe that is that rail yard multifamily project that's being constructed along Sycamore.
Okay, and maybe if she wants specifics, you all can exchange information that way.
Thank you, Julie.
Ma'am, you wanted to come down and speak?
Hi, if you'll give us your name, your time will begin.
Elle Autry.
I pay rent at 1008 Scott in Southeast Denton.
So in the mail out that I got, it says Southeast Denton area plan, I have a question.
Can future city councils then opt to have then make their own plan or disregard that
which y'all have worked on in so much as time and effort has went into?
So that's my forward thinking, and could anyone speak to that?
Possibly the ladies who were on earlier.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'll have Julie or Tina speak on that, but basically if this plan gets adopted by
city council, I mean it will become part of our development code.
This will be part of that document.
So no, it cannot be changed, but I'll let you elaborate.
So and maybe a little bit of planning education here also.
So I know some had spoken to the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan.
So that's the city's plan that we've adopted that helps guide the city with future decisions
related to how land is used within the community, infrastructure investments, and also where
we invest in our public facilities, where we lay out the type of housing that's desired
within the community, address transportation issues, things of greater needs.
But think of it as a 30,000 level plan.
When we do this area plan like the Southeast Denton plan, that allows us to be more boots
on the ground, study the area in much greater detail to put that plan in place, to have
refined recommendations based upon the community's feedback that we've heard.
Because again, this plan reflects all of the feedback that we've received from the community.
Can this plan be amended in the future?
Yes, technically it can be.
If we are to amend this plan, we would go through a similar public engagement process
so that we could engage the community and hear from the community what's working well,
what needs to be changed, and be able to communicate that to council.
If we were to receive a request from a property owner or developer to rezone property within
the boundaries of the Southeast Denton plan, we would look to the plan and see what does
the plan recommend for the property.
Is what's being requested and proposed by the property owner, the developer, consistent
with that plan?
If it is, then we're going to tell the Planning and Zoning Commission and subsequent city
council that this request to develop this property is consistent with the plan.
Or if it's not, we tell them it's not consistent with the plan.
Staff's recommendations for future development activities that may occur in Southeast Denton
are going to be based on the Southeast Denton area plan.
Because again, we've done this finer review and engagement with the community to understand
what the community wants, where it is truly a community-based plan.
But it's, you know, technically can that plan be changed?
Yes, but it has to go through a similar process of like what we're doing tonight where we're
engaging the community, we're doing public notification, and then we are explaining why
it's appropriate to make these changes or not.
Thank you, Tina.
Commissioner Pridger, I know you've been in the queue for a minute.
Did you want to talk before the public hearing?
Yes.
So hearing from the members of the public about the steering committee in particular,
could staff give just a little insight on how the committee was developed?
Sure.
Absolutely.
So we asked the Planning and Zoning Commission members, we asked City Council, we talked
to community members, and those names were nominated.
And then we talked to those, looked for those community leaders as well as getting those
recommendations from P&Z and City Council for those positions in the steering committee.
And I guess if we could add to that, maybe Julie, if you could put up that list of members
and then be able to help people within the audience understand the categories that they're
represented, why we worked with selecting those individuals and ultimately that they
were appointed by City Council.
Sure.
Yes.
So at the outset, we looked at different categories that we wanted, that we felt were appropriate
for the steering committee, that we are looking for people to fill.
Things like resident under 40 years of age, to get that younger feedback, faith leader,
property owner, business owner, housing advocate.
Housing was something that was important, so we wanted somebody who was involved in
housing, LULAC member.
We had, because of the well-loved parks within Southeast Denton, we wanted to have a parks
board member, and that was Francis.
And then we just looked at some residents.
So we had also just a couple of residents.
So tried to have a broad slate of categories to really represent different stakeholder
groups within Southeast Denton and to provide that validation to make sure, give us feedback
on any parts of the plan.
So the steering committee met four times during the year.
That first time, they heard what we heard or what the project team heard at those listening
sessions.
And those were those really hard conversations that Mitchell was talking about.
And in fact, the city wasn't even in the first set of listening sessions because we wanted
the community members to be as frank and open and honest with the project team as possible.
So the steering committee validated what we heard.
They said, "This is what we've heard from the community."
They said, "Yes, that's right," or "No, that's not right."
And then we went back to them after the visioning and said, "Okay, this is what we've heard
in terms of the vision statement and the goals.
Is that accurate?
Is that what you're hearing?"
We talked to the steering committee about the existing conditions, made sure that we
were on the right track and that we were capturing the right data.
And then ultimately we talked to them about the strategies and those implementation tasks.
So throughout it, we really touched them several times during the year to make sure that we
were approaching it in a way that they thought was appropriate and was consistent with the
goals of the residents of Southeastern.
So just for clarity, when it says resident under the age of 40 or property owner, it's
specific to a resident or property owner within Southeast Denton?
Yes.
Okay.
That's what that person is.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks, Julie.
This is a public hearing.
I don't have any other cards.
Is there anyone else here wishing to speak who has not already?
Yeah.
Come on down.
Hi, if you'll give us your name, your time will begin.
Hello.
How y'all doing?
My name is Steven Richard, resident 1106 Moore Street.
I guess my biggest question is just the communications and the transparency about this, because I'm
one of those individuals who just recently found out about this as well, been a member
of Southeast Denton, a resident of Southeast Denton for 20 something years now, right?
And no, I'm not always the most engaged in what's going on with my community, but still
feel like I have a pretty decent finger on the pulse to kind of get what's going on.
I guess the concern with me is that it was stated that there were restaurants, we were
at restaurants, we really don't have any restaurants in Southeast Denton.
I mean, so I don't know what restaurants we were at or when these meetings were taking
place.
I'm sorry?
Clarice.
Clarice, okay.
And then I guess, and from that right there, I guess the communication that went out, that
was cascaded to everybody in the community to let them know, "Hey, we're having a meeting
at Clarice about engaged in or discussed in regarding your neighborhood, regarding what's
going to happen or the future developments of our neighborhood."
Communications like that, I mean, I'm pretty avid, stick to my mail, you know, bills come
in.
Really didn't see anything like that in the mail, like I said, like my father said.
We saw that sign right there on Robertson Street in Bell and it was like, "Wow, what's
going on?
This is a small little sign."
I feel like if you want to have a really good communication and get a full scope of everybody
in the community, go to the churches.
Nobody went to the churches, nobody was at a barber shop, nobody went to a beauty shop,
nobody went to any of those places that really have a solid finger and a solid pulse of our
neighborhood where we go and talk.
Anybody knows that.
You want to go, you want to get some information out, go to the church.
It didn't happen.
I mean, I wasn't really, I wasn't in town for the Juneteenth celebrations, but I don't
know if anybody was down at Juneteenth celebrations.
Those are the things that I'm saying, like I don't, yeah, I know a few of those individuals
up there, but all those individuals don't represent the greater, the greater Southeast
end.
There's still a lot of people that aren't represented or there's still a lot of demographics
that aren't represented on that from those group of people.
And if those meetings were occurring, it would just be nice to know when those are occurring.
So then we can all participate because this is important.
Like some of these individuals, like Mr. Magda, like he said, he's, he's in his sixties and
this plan is going to go over for the next, you know, 10, 15 years.
He might, he might not, he might not be able to be here for that, for those things, or
he might not be able to be vocal for that, but somebody like myself or the younger generations,
we can, but it's hard to be a participant of those things if we're not aware of them.
And that's just my thing.
If we can just get transparency and get a little bit better communication, open communication
with this, I think that would be fantastic.
Thank you.
And I will let staff speak to that because I believe they were much more engaged than
you have any idea and I'm going to let them tell them so you can understand it.
And I'm sorry that I'm thrilled you're here.
I'm sorry that it is just today that you've heard about this, but I'm going to let them
speak to all the places that they've been and, and, and this is not something that, that,
that was just this steering committee.
It's the steering committee that had to be formed so that this plan could be done.
But prior to that, there was tremendous amount of community engagement.
And I will let Tina and, and, and Julie let you know what that was.
Thank you.
Yes.
I'm so glad that we've got community members here tonight and I'm hoping as we're continuing
on this planning journey together that they'll come out and see us more.
We, we did send out postcards for our community meetings.
We put flyers in our, in our rec centers and in businesses, beauty shops and, and, and
barber shops within, within Southeast Denton in locations, restaurants.
So we, what, daycare center, we, we tried to get as, as much information out.
Of course, we, we could always do better.
One of our strategies in the plan is to develop a communication strategy for Southeast Denton.
So it's great information.
We can continue to improve as we're, as we continue to work with the Southeast Denton
community.
We, we have tried to be at every event that has been held in Southeast Denton in the last
year and that is includes both the 2023 and 2024 Juneteenth national night out last fall.
We, we set up, we do tabling at MLK when parents are coming to pick up kids and in the evenings
when people are coming out, we've done tabling at the American Legion hall.
So we've tried to, we, LULAC meetings, SEDNA meetings, tried to, tried to reach as many
people as possible, put out signs.
And so, you know, of course we'll, we'll continue to work with the community to make sure that
we, we reach all residents, of course.
Yeah.
Well, and I was going to say, and I would add to that, there's been articles that have
been published in the Denton Record Chronicle.
We've maintained a website with Discuss Denton because we realize a lot of people within the
community follow Discuss Denton.
So anything of, just, you know, FII, anything of significance that the city is working on
is, is typically posted on Discuss Denton, if you follow that.
One of the things that was interesting that we heard from the community is less of the
electronic communication, right?
They preferred more the old school methods of, of all the activities that Julie just
described where we were physically hosting events.
We were being out in the community and being part of, you know, Parks and Recreation was
hosting the Juneteenth Festival, then we were out there.
So because we knew that was an opportunity for us to be able to interact with the community.
But so it was, you know, as we worked through this project and we heard and received feedback
throughout, we tried to adapt accordingly.
And again, I'll make note, Julie and Mia were at Sedna meetings on a regular basis.
Ms. Collette was very polite to allow for my team to be able to make presentations and
provide updates.
I think the running joke became, "Julie, Mia, go home," right, because just because
they were, they were in the community so much.
So, you know, my apologies if some of you did not learn of this project as we've been
working on this.
We also, we did go to the churches.
One of the members that is on this steering committee, Reverend Logan, I know is very involved
within the black churches within Southeast Denton and trying to be able to get the word
out with the community.
So we tried to leverage all those relationships that we had in the community, even when former
Commissioner McDade was on the Planning and Zoning Commission.
And I know once he was no longer on the commission, he continued to stay involved, you know, being
able to rely upon persons like himself in order to be able to help get the word out
amongst the community.
So we tried to leverage all aspects that we could.
As Julie pointed out, you know, are there additional things we could have done?
Probably so.
But we tried to be able to get as much information out to the community in a variety of different
ways for people to learn that this project was going on.
Thank you.
I do have another card to speak.
It is Collette Johnson.
Hello, Collette Johnson, 327 Roost Street.
I am president of the Senate group and I'm just here to back Julie because they did put
the information out every single month.
They were at the meetings for a whole year and so those that attended the meetings knew
what was going on.
You guys have, y'all were at the National Night Out, like you said.
You've been to the American Legion Hall.
You were at Juneteenth and some people just don't get involved in stuff like that to know
about what's going on until it's too late.
But I'm just here to say that Julie has been at the meeting every month.
This information was out.
They did go to the churches.
Now, they may have not gone to every church, but they did come out to the churches and
they've been at the American Legion Hall and a lot of people say that Clara's is not
a restaurant, but they were at Clara's.
So the information was brought out.
I'm sorry if everybody didn't know about it, but we have those meetings every month and
I have invited people to those meetings every month.
So those that have been at the meetings knew about it and I just want to apologize for
those that didn't know about it.
I'm sorry, but we tried everything to get people involved.
So.
Thank you.
The neighborhood meetings.
Every month.
What do you have?
Four meetings.
Six o'clock in the okay.
Anybody's invited?
Ms. Collette.
Could you restate when you do your Sedna meetings in the microphone?
Every fourth Monday we meet every fourth Monday at six o'clock at the MLK Center.
We do not meet in November, December because of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
So we meet every fourth Monday, six o'clock.
Thank you, Ms. Collette.
Okay.
We can't have a dialogue this way, but you can talk to Ms. Collette after.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I just wanted to in support of Julie.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
I don't have any other cards in front of me, but if you would like to speak, if you have
not already, please come on down.
Okay.
Seeing none, I will go ahead and close the public hearing.
I'm going to go ahead and open the floor for discussion or a motion.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Thank you, Chair.
I very much understand why there's apprehension regarding this.
Commissioner McDade, you know, I've, you know, voted against the Woodrow apartment complex
not once, not twice, but three times with you, and I was one of the only people to vote
with you against the rail yard complex.
But this plan is going to hopefully prevent developments that are going against the wishes
of the neighborhood.
This is a plan that will benefit the community greatly.
And I very much apologize.
We weren't able to get to everyone.
I do think this was, we were able to get a large swath, the community's viewpoints answered
and heard.
And with that in mind, I'm going to move approval.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Villarreal.
May I add just a little friendly amendment to that?
Would you consider adding what we talked about earlier with shy and adding the housing type
pictures into the plan?
Absolutely.
Apologies for forgetting that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Commissioner Cole.
I second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second discussion.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
Question for staff, I guess.
I'm looking at the, all of the action items and the near term says one to two years.
I'm really excited about this, but there are 27 items there to be done in the next two
years.
Do we realistically have the capacity with the current staff to go execute on that?
Because what I'm hearing from the community is we've poured our hearts into this plan
for the last year and we are nervous because in the past we have seen things get forgotten.
I've been here on this commission for three years, as long as council doesn't kick me
off, I'll be here probably for three more.
If we really want to get those 27 actions done in the next two years, I'm going to hold
to it.
If we don't have the capacity, I want our recommendation to be clear to council that
this is what this is going to take to get it through that process in a timely manner.
Does that make sense?
I don't know, Tina, if anybody else can speak to that.
Sure thing, so you're right, the plan is aggressive with 27 action items identified within the
next one to two years.
We will do our best.
I would love to say that, yes, we will get them all done within the one to two year time
frame, but I realize that that may not also be realistic.
Some of them may require funding.
We tried to identify action items, especially those in the near term, that would be items
that we could hit the ground running.
Our focus following adoption of this plan is to work on the implementation because we
realize this plan is only as good as the implementation efforts.
We've been fortunate that the city has allowed us to add some staff to our team over the
years in order to be able to better prepare us for being able to move forward with implementation.
I can't 100% commit that we will get everything accomplished within the next two years, but
we will do our very best to make sure that we get the action items underway so that we
can show that we are implementing the plan because, again, this plan is only as good
as us being able to implement it, also being able to work with our partner agencies in
convincing them to be able to work with us.
We actually reached out to all of the partner agencies that we've identified in the plan,
met with them, shared with them the action items to see, okay, are these doable?
Can you provide us the support?
And we had favorable responses from those agencies.
Thank you.
That helps.
I'll just say that when we roll back around to next summer's yearly update, I'll be looking
to see how many of those 27 actions has been completed so far.
And if it's much less than, say, 15, then we're going to need to let council know that
something has to change in order to get through them in a timely manner.
Thank you.
Okay.
We've got a motion on the floor, first and a second, any other discussion?
Okay.
I'll just say thank you all for coming out.
Thank you for speaking.
Commissioner McDade, it is great to see you.
And I just want to commend staff, the steering committee, the consultants who worked so hard
in this.
It was fantastic public engagement throughout this process, truly.
It's wonderful, honestly, to see this moving forward.
So hopefully with council's approval, we'll have this guiding document in place for the
future growth in the preservation of this really special area in our city.
So well done.
I'll go ahead and call for a vote on the board, please.
Oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Prodrone.
I did not see you until just right now.
Let's hold off.
Yeah, I apologize.
Go ahead.
No worries.
Again, I just want to thank staff for your diligence in trying to execute this project.
And I also want to thank Commissioner Pruitt for your recent comments, because I do think
that is important that if this plan is moving forward, that we do keep to what we're setting
out to change and to develop.
And I think that there should always be that special consideration given the history of
this community and protecting this particular space.
Just wanted to put that out there.
Thank you.
Okay, let's go ahead and vote on the board, please.
That motion will carry 5-0.
That will take us to our next public hearing item tonight.
That is 2B, DCA 24-0008.
I will go ahead and open the public hearing.
And Keisha is here for presentation.
Hi.
Good evening, Chair and Commissioners.
Keisha Suriano, Assistant Plan Director.
I'm here for item DCA 24-0008, planning and zoning reconsideration item.
So as we've discussed previously, this is a staff-initiated request based on a prior
reconsideration request that was made August last year.
Currently, you all follow the process for city council for reconsideration.
You don't have your own.
So we're bringing forward this item to create a process and update the DDC procedures so
that the planning and zoning commission has their own set of procedures to follow for
reconsidering an agenda item.
So again, the proposal is to amend the care and goal to establish a comprehensive reconsideration
process for the planning and zoning commission.
We discussed having the two processes.
So if there is an item that has been publicly noticed for city council the following week,
then if any member of commission on the prevailing side would like to reconsider the item that
will need to be into our office by the fall on Friday, if the item has not yet been publicly
noticed for the meeting, the following week for city council, then you will have until
Thursday before your next meeting.
Just to continue the proposal, if the motion to reconsider prevails, the item would come
back as an item for consideration first, and if it prevails, then we'll go through the
notification process to bring it back on for you all to be able to vote on it.
If it fails, then we'll go back through our public notice process in order for it to move
on to city council.
Commissioner does recommend approval of this item, and I'm here for any questions.
Thank you very much.
Any questions?
I do not see any.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing.
I don't have any cards in front of me on this item.
Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item?
Okay.
Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and open the floor for a motion or discussion.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Since it was my reconsideration vote that led us down this rabbit hole, I guess I should
get a motion approval on this change.
Thank you, Commissioner Brewer.
And since I made a point of saying this should be a rare thing, but it's important when we
need it, I'll say that I happily second it.
We've got a first and a second for approval of this item.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote, please.
Is it not working?
There we go.
Okay.
That motion carries 5-0.
That will bring us to item 2C, DCA240009.
I will open the public hearing.
And Erin is here for presentation.
Hi.
Good evening.
Okay.
This is a proposed charter school amendment to the DDC, Erin Stanley, Assistant Planner.
So in the most recent legislative session, a few changes were made to state legislature
about charter schools.
So in House Bill 1707, it required in the state education code as well as the local
government code that cities treat charter schools the same way they do public schools
when it meets certain considerations, being that the charter school, no administrator,
officer, employee, governing body member of the school benefits financially from any real
estate transaction with the school.
So if this is met, then they must be treated as a public school.
So because of that, staff is proposing changes to the DDC.
Mainly, we are creating a charter school definition, which we do not have now, and updating the
table of allowed uses, creating a use-specific standard for charter schools, and updating
the required minimum parking.
So currently, charter schools are viewed as private schools in our current development
review.
And we have three open enrollment charter schools in the city of Denton today, North
Texas Collegiate Academy, KI Charter, and Founders or Denton Classical Academy.
And the proposed amendments would create a charter school definition just to really identify
it separately from the public schools and eliminate any future confusion that staff
may have in reviewing charter schools, if they should be under private or public schools.
And then we would also update the table of allowed uses to add in charter schools there.
And you'll see that we're allowing it by right in every district that would allow a private
school.
And then as long as they meet the use-specific standard that ties back to the Texas Education
Code about no financial benefit, then they would be allowed by right in all of the districts
that would allow public schools as well.
And then we are also updating the table of required minimum parking.
So there's no change being proposed to public and private school parking.
We're simply consolidating those and adding them with the charter school parking just
to clean up the table as we needed to add charter schools in there already.
And with that, staff is recommending approval as the proposed amendments meet all established
criteria in the DDC for amendments.
And I'll stand for any questions.
Next up would be Council on August 20th.
Great.
Thank you, Erin.
Any questions for Erin?
I do not see any.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing.
I do not have any cards in front of me.
Is there anyone wishing to speak on this?
Okay.
I will go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor for a motion or discussion.
Commissioner Cole?
I move for approval.
Okay.
Commissioner Pedrone?
I second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Let's go ahead and vote, please.
That motion carries 4-1.
That will move us to concluding items for this evening.
Is there any concluding items?
Okay.
Well with that, I will thank you all for being here on this special called meeting.
We do have a meeting next week.
So we'll see you then.
And I'll adjourn our meeting here at 7:57 p.m.
Thank you.