>> Good afternoon and welcome to the city of Denton's planning and zoning commission
meeting for Wednesday, August 14th, 2024.
This is our work session and with the quorum present, I'll call us to order at 5.03 p.m.
Let the record show that commissioners Thaggart and commissioner Pruitt are absent at this
time.
First item on our work session agenda is citizen comment on the consent agenda.
Is there anyone here wishing to speak on consent?
Okay.
All right.
That will move us then to our second item on work session.
That's clarification for tonight's agenda.
That will start with the minutes from the 17th and the 24th.
Any discussion upon those questions?
Okay.
High commissioner Pruitt.
Next will be the consent agenda.
We've got two items there.
Any questions on consent?
Okay.
All right.
We'll go to items for individual consideration then 4A is FP240026.
Sean did you want to give us a synopsis of that?
>> Good evening.
Sean Jacobson.
Members of the commission.
Let me just pull this up here.
Okay.
All right.
So FP2424B, seen this before, this is a plat for the Sage Creek town homes.
They have resolved all of the outstanding concerns and they are ready to go and we are
recommending approval.
All right.
Did you send out anyone?
Somehow I have a postponement on that.
Is that just my bad?
>> Nope.
>> That's my error.
Okay.
Sounds good.
That's why.
Because it's 26.
We're on 26A.
>> Oh.
>> Yeah.
>> My apologies.
>> That's okay.
I just want to double check my notes and what I thought.
>> I went to the consent agenda once.
>> Yes.
>> My apologies.
>> There we go.
That's what I was expecting.
>> Yes.
>> That's what I thought I read.
Okay.
>> Sorry about that.
Yes.
>> Thank you, Sean.
This is for the Asintio Ventures Plat and yes, we are recommending denial because they
do not yet meet the criteria for approval.
However, we have no objection to them going to September 11th with an extension.
>> All right.
Questions on that?
Thank you for clarifying.
>> Yeah.
My apologies for thinking of you.
>> Of course.
Next is 4B, FP240023.
Looks like Angie is met.
Bye.
>> Thank you.
My name is Angie Manglaris.
I am playing the role of Matt this evening here to present FP240023C.
This is a final plat for an approximately 15-acre tract of land generally located north of Fish
Trap Road into the west of Greenleaf Circle.
It is zoned light industrial.
At the time, the final plat does not meet our criteria for approval.
They are requesting their third extension to a date certain of September 11th, which
staff has no objection to.
Happy to answer any questions.
>> Thank you.
Questions?
And third extension, I assume we are moving along on things or are we just waiting for
some kind of -- >> Yes.
There are a couple of minor comments left on their civil engineering plans.
It's anticipated this is taken care of in advance of September 11th.
>> Got it.
Okay.
Thank you, Angie.
>> Thank you.
>> Next is 4C, FR240005.
Hi, Bryce.
>> Good evening, Chair.
Members of the commission, Bryce VanArtsville, assistant planner.
This is a final replat for approximately 36 acres, 0.5 miles south of Bonnie Bray Street
on the north side of Rose Lawn Drive.
Currently this plat does not meet the criteria for approval as they have some minor comments
to work through on their civil engineering plans, but staff has no objections to the
requested second extension to a date certain of September 11th this year.
Stand for any questions.
>> Thank you.
Questions?
Okay.
Thank you much.
Oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner.
Go ahead.
>> So this is our second extension, just like the chair asked earlier.
Do we believe it's going to be able to solve the problem within the time of 4D11th?
>> Absolutely.
>> Okay.
>> Thank you.
Okay.
Next we have 4D, FR240008.
Julie is here this evening.
Good evening.
Or I guess afternoon still.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Julie Wyatt, this is a FR240008, it's a replat of the Country Lakes addition.
It is a residential, single-family residential.
The original plat had an easement along the north property boundary of those lots.
It is not a needed easement.
It doesn't have any public infrastructure in it, but so it is something that they want
to remove so the residents can fully enjoy those lots.
They do have some items they need to work through so staff cannot recommend approval
at this time.
We're recommending denial.
But we have no objection to the extension to September 11th and this is the first extension
request.
>> Thank you, Julie.
Questions?
>> Thank you.
Next is 4E, ZCP 240015, hi, Mia.
>> Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, senior planner.
Just a quick summary of this item.
It's a zoning compliance plan for Alterra at Razor Ranch, which is a multi-family residential
development located at the -- or going to be located at the southeast corner of Crescent
Street and East Park Boulevard within the Razor Ranch overlay.
Of course, zoning compliance plans don't usually come before this body because this is in Razor
Ranch.
It does require planning and zoning commission approval.
And it does meet all of our criteria for approval, so we are recommending approval this evening
at this time.
I'll take any questions.
>> Okay.
Thank you, Mia.
Questions?
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay, next is 4F, FR240006, oh, that is yours as well, and I know that one was changed from
original backup.
We got an e-mail on that.
I'll let you fill the rest in.
>> Yeah, so this is a replat for Hickory Grove Phase 1A located within the city -- in the
AZTJ, north of West University Drive and west of Thomas J. Egan.
When this originally went out, the plat was not ready for approval.
It did not meet all of our criteria, but we have since worked with the applicant, and
so we are recommending approval of this plat, the updated copy that was forwarded to this
body.
Any questions?
>> Questions?
Okay.
Thank you, Mia.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> All right.
That will take us to our public hearings for tonight of both 5A and 5B.
The applicant has requested these be postponed indefinitely.
I do have a question for Hillary on this one.
We left the public hearing open on the last one.
Should I close that?
It seems very strange to -- I don't know.
I guess what is the procedure there?
>> Yes.
>> Okay, can you confirm, but I believe we're fixing to go ahead and re-notice everything?
>> Yes.
I believe at the time when they -- when the applicant indicates that they're ready to
come back, we would be re-noticing at that time.
>> Perfect.
>> Yeah.
>> So for continuity, go ahead and close the public hearing and --
>> Yeah.
Okay.
>> -- move on.
>> And then we'll move on, obviously.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
Very good.
>> It's for minute continuity and such.
>> I like it.
Okay.
And then we'll then take us to 4 -- I'm sorry, 5C, CA240003.
Hello.
>> Good evening, Chair and Commission.
Cameron Robertson.
Oops.
Let me exit out of this.
This evening, we do not have a work session presentation for you all, but I'm happy to
go over it myself.
I'm happy to answer questions.
We also have Zach Lockram from Men Collaborative here to answer questions as well.
>> Awesome.
What kind of questions do we have for Downtown Plan?
Commissioner Pruitt?
>> Thank you, Chair.
Just a brief question.
Specifically on some of the road diet recommendations, has that been embraced by different departments
in staff, including traffic engineering and so -- the reason I ask is that I know things
can change and the reality is on the ground, but last year, staff recommended against installing
or planning for a roundabout down at Eagle and Dallas Drive, because their traffic demand
model showed upwards of 60,000 cars per day needing to be conveyed through there.
I'm not of the opinion that that's what we should plan for, but I just wanted to make
sure that we have alignment as we go forward.
>> We do.
And we've been in discussion with them.
A roundabout warrants and what you would do in terms of a 4-3 conversion are pretty separate
issues that turning motions and all of those animals can create --
>> Do you mind coming to the mic?
>> I'm sorry.
I apologize.
I'm Zach Lockram.
I'm with Men Collaborative.
I'm the consultant for the Downtown Plan.
And yes, we have been coordinating with traffic engineering with everyone that we would need
to regarding that, and just -- I was saying that the warrants for a roundabout are significantly
different than how you would evaluate a 4-3 conversion or other types of changes into the
--
>> Thank you very much.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you.
What other questions?
Anything else for him?
And I know we're looking forward to the presentation.
This is exciting.
Commissioner Villareal.
>> Thank you, Chair.
And yeah, looking forward towards the presentation later today.
I know we had three constituents who reached out with questions.
I was wondering if we had a chance to answer those questions.
None of them were opposed or anything like that.
They just had a few questions about the boundaries.
One had questions about handicapped ramps, and there was another one who had two questions
mostly about bicycle lanes, it looks like.
I just want to know if y'all had a chance to look at those questions.
>> Yes.
Staff did have a chance to look at those questions.
And I think some of the questions regarding the bicycle lanes, and I think there were
some questions about landscaping.
So those correlate to the conceptual plans.
And as we're going to kind of cover through tonight's presentation during the public hearing,
is that once again, those are conceptual plans.
It's kind of showing the landscaping fully grown out and what those chill streets will
look like in the future.
In regards to the boundary, really, those are not hard edges.
When we're looking at the boundary, when we look at area planning, we do have to create
boundaries so that we know where our policy and ordinances are going to hit.
But in terms of this plan itself, all those policies, all those different recommendations
that we're putting forward in the plan are going to have, you know, go past those boundaries.
It's going to be a benefit to those neighboring communities.
For instance, southeast, you know, the neighborhoods to the south, UNT, TWU, it's not going to
just be, you know, solely within those boundaries that you see in the plan.
So that's one of the things, and I forget what the other comment was regarding, I apologize.
Handicapped ramps and downtown.
Those are all things that we're considering and those are included as recommendations
within the plan.
Walkability is huge.
That's something that we heard from members of the community that that was one thing that
was a huge focus to us in the plan.
So ADA ramps, wider sidewalks, multimodal transportation, those are all things that are being recommended
and going forward in the plan.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Of course.
I have one quick thing as well just to make sure that this is conveyed as well.
When we did, especially our online engagement, we didn't draw a boundary around downtown
when we were asking people to do our online mapping tool.
We let them self-define what they thought downtown was.
And then all of the comments that sort of fell outside of our study area were provided
to Southeast Denton plan that were communicated to the planners who work around the university
as well.
So we were really trying to make sure that we were making sure that we understand that
there's an area of influence that goes beyond downtown as well.
And making sure that we were doing everything in coordination with the other planning efforts
that were going on.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Cameron, on the note of back to the note of like ADA and special things, did you talk
to the committee?
Oh, I know you talked to so many people, but did you meet with the committee with persons
with disabilities?
We had tried to schedule the first time that we had scheduled with the committee.
Unfortunately, they didn't have quorum.
And then the second time that it was held, unfortunately, staff was very much at our
limits in terms of availability at that time.
And we're trying to finalize.
So we are planning on going in September prior to city council.
Oh, that'd be nice.
Yeah.
I think that would be great just to see if there's something that they could add to if
there's anything that was missed, that would certainly be the group that that would have
a better pulse on it.
Definitely.
Okay, anything else?
Thank you very much.
Thanks for being here.
Okay.
Final public hearing item tonight is 5D ASUP 23000.
And Sean is here for this item.
Thank you, Chair, members of the commission, Sean Jacobson.
Let me just get this pulled up here.
So this is ASUP 230001, which is the landmark at Locust multifamily.
So you all may recall this property actually has a fully approved site plan for 660 units
of multifamily.
It was approved back in 2022.
And so this is not regarding a change in use in any way.
What they're requesting is some site changes actually to expand the area available for
commercial non-residential development adjacent to the property.
So following approval, the property owner and the developer came back to us and said,
hey, we've looked at it.
The area we have left for non-residential development isn't, it's not really deep enough
for retail pads there.
Could we make some changes and the amount of changes that they were proposing in terms
of moving street extensions, turning them into drive aisles.
It was enough that we said we can't just administratively approve that.
We do need to take that back to PNZ and city council.
And so what we're bringing the amendments are changes to the site truly to accomplish
that goal of expanding the available non-residential at the corner there.
So use is approved, having multifamily there is approved.
This is actually a slight reduction in the number of multifamily units and buildings
in order to accomplish this goal.
And of course, we'll discuss in more detail, but that's essentially the essence of this.
It's an amendment to the site plan of an approved development.
So happy to answer any questions.
>> Thank you.
I know I went back and watched that video, that was October of '22, I think, just to
make sure that things were still like, those things weren't changing.
So I assume like Atlas Drive is still going to be just an emergency access.
>> Absolutely.
>> We still have that pedestrian access outside of the gate to the apartment complex, right,
where they would be able to access from that street to get to the commercial sites.
That's still in place.
>> All still there.
>> Okay.
They're still doing a phase development, so that south side is being developed first?
>> I believe, yes, yes, that's correct.
>> And with that, they're doing all of the key connective infrastructure, including the
drive aisle that goes out across from AME as well.
So all those kind of those essential things they're doing with phase one.
>> Okay, okay.
Yeah, I think I read that.
Let me just see.
Yeah, so the buffer's staying, right, that tree stand is staying on.
>> Not touching.
>> Yeah, okay.
>> The thing about how that's designed.
>> Perfect, perfect.
So then I guess the only, the traffic light, so is that different than what we discussed?
>> Nope.
It's the same place.
>> Yep.
>> Which is going to be at?
>> At, across from Beale and Locust.
>> Beale.
>> Yes.
>> Right, so AME is right in, right out.
>> So the change there, so if you were on the development, you can go right out.
It is actually going to, rather than restricted, it is going to a full intersection.
So we were able to work through that more with transportation, and the concern was,
what had been recommended was something that wouldn't allow folks across the way, across
Locust, on the AME side, they would have never been able to go north the way it was proposed.
When we looked at it more like, no, they really need the ability to actually take a left turn
out of there.
>> Okay.
>> And so we looked at that and determined that that could be done safely and changed
the intersection accordingly.
>> So that'll be done, I mean that won't have a light, so you're talking about the people
on the north side, no, that's not north, west I guess it would be?
>> Yes.
>> They'd be able to turn left out of there.
>> Yes.
>> In this new apartment complex, they can only go right out of there, correct?
>> That was originally, but they were proposing a pork chop, which was not something that
tech set where we were comfortable with.
So they will be able to turn out of AME.
>> Turn left or right out of AME, or whatever that's going to be called on that side?
>> I believe so, I'm going to confirm that because I want to make sure that I'm stating
that correctly.
But I believe we did state that was a full intersection.
>> Okay, then there would be no in there?
It would just be an exit?
>> No, it would be a full left, right.
So you could turn in, you could turn out.
>> Okay.
>> But however, they are putting in a dedicated turn lane doing south.
>> Okay.
Okay, I'll look forward to seeing that later.
Okay, I think that answers my questions for now, Commissioner Villarreal.
>> Thank you, Chair.
I know we had quite a few letters of opposition in the packet, and then a few emails that
came in.
And I know they had a meeting where about, I think it was a dozen folks showed up.
Was staff present at that meeting by chance?
>> Staff was not able to make it over there from a prior commitment.
So the report we had was that the residents were generally in favor of it when they found
out that none of the things that they had been really concerned about had changed.
And I will note, none of the letters we have received this time were opposition letters
from those who were in support the first time.
>> Gotcha.
And I guess, did staff reach out to those folks who had written letters in opposition
letting them know what the changes were, and was there a positive response after that?
Do we know if that occurred?
>> No, we mostly reached out just to let them know that we would pass those concerns on.
In some cases, there weren't necessarily clear concerns expressed, and the objections were
often to kind of the concept of multifamily, which this isn't changing.
>> Gotcha.
Thank you.
>> Commissioner Pruitt.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Unfortunately I didn't go back and watch the entire session.
So my memory may be a little rusty.
But I remember some discussion about the vision for that street that's along the northern
border of the multifamily area.
Procedurally, once they get to the phase where they do want to start developing the commercial,
is that staff reviewed?
Is that because it's an NSUP, does that come back before us?
I'm trying to -- I just want to understand what the process is.
It would be wonderful if commercial development in the area were something other than blank
loading docks in front of the residents here, in other words.
So the area outside of the multifamily area would be a staff approval as long as those
uses that they were pursuing were things that were permitted by right within the suburban
corridor.
But keep in mind, all of our requirements for adjacency buffering would be in place
and actually somewhat stronger because the right-of-way separation is being removed,
and so it will actually be adjacent lot to adjacent lot, and therefore all of our buffers
that would not necessarily apply if you have a right-of-way in the middle now would apply.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions at the moment for Sean?
Sean, there was one thing I didn't write down that is one of the changes, and I can't remember
what it is now.
Does it have to do with, like, building style or --
Yes.
Talk me through that.
I was a little confused as to why they're asking for that.
Yeah.
So part of the challenge was when they made this change, it pushed the drive aisles in
the direction of the multifamily, reducing the developable area that they had.
That forced them to change the sizes and configurations of the buildings to fit into the remaining
space, and therefore they proposed a larger number of designs because they had to fit
into more slots.
They had less room, and so they had to come up with things that could fit into areas.
They did also propose some just general aesthetic changes.
Staff reviewing them determined that they still meet our criteria, still a nice design,
but it was mostly that need to fit into a smaller area that caused that.
Okay.
Understood.
Okay.
Anything else?
Okay.
Look forward to the full presentation --
Absolutely.
-- later on.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for answering our questions.
Okay, that takes us through our agenda for this evening, so now we'll get into our work
session reports.
The first one being 3A, PZ24163, Receive a Report, Hold a Discussion, Give Staff Direction
Regarding an Ordinance to the City of Denton, Mending the DDC to Include Affordable Housing
Incentive Procedures.
Hello.
Hey.
I'm much shorter than Shawn is.
Good evening, Commission.
My name is Leah Atkinson.
I'm the Housing Programs Coordinator.
It is good to see you again.
I am here today to return for your consideration the proposed Affordability Incentives Amendment.
So in summary, this is a proposed amendment to update the Denton 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 their development.
This was brought to you for consideration in July, and the Commission's direction at
that time was to come back for a second work session after conducting more public engagement.
Staff has conducted that public engagement and is returning.
I will first briefly review the basics of the proposed amendment as originally offered
before diving into that public engagement.
So just briefly, staff's proposal today is presented in alignment with a few different
planning documents.
First and foremost, the Affordable Housing Strategic Toolkit, of which this is an item
outlined.
Additionally, City Council's priority to prioritize to foster economic opportunity and affordability,
as well as the Denton 2040 Plan and the Economic Development Strategic Plan.
These are the nine incentives proposed, a 20 percent deviation from the minimum yard
and setback requirements, building coverage requirements, minimum building coverage to
be specific, minimum lot width, depth and area, maximum building height, and minimum
unit size.
Additionally, a 10-point reduction in the landscaping area point system and a parking
reduction down to one spot per affordable dwelling unit.
And exchange developments would be dedicating some of their homes to low-income residents
at rates affordable to those low-income residents, whether that be leases or homes for ownership.
The scale of affordability would increase depending on the number of incentives utilized.
If just one incentive is utilized, 20 percent of those homes would be dedicated to low-income
households, divided into smaller categories of different AMI levels included within low
income.
And that scales upwards to 65 percent as a maximum for four or more incentives utilized.
Additionally, as originally proposed, the duration of affordability also scales up with
the number of incentives utilized, starting at 20 years for just one incentive and increasing
to a maximum of 45 years if four or more incentives are utilized.
This is an example we worked together to create.
This is a real example of a real development in Denton.
This is Sherman Crossing, multifamily development.
This is a vision to meet the landscaping area point system.
They chose two elements from section A, B, and C, respectively.
This is an illustration of what they might have done were they to utilize the landscaping
area point system reduction incentive.
So in that scenario, they might have removed their obligation to create a parking island
every ten spaces, as well as plant trees that exceed four caliper inches.
So still planting all those same trees, just slightly smaller at the time of planting,
which saves that developer a good bit of upfront cost.
So you can see that illustrated there.
The development overall had 294 units.
So in exchange, if they had utilized this incentive, 59 of their units would need to
be affordable for that 20 percent.
This development can also just as well be used for single-family development.
This is a close-up of a subdivision just showing a single block.
This is the Stella Hills subdivision just focusing in.
We can see here what it might look like if this development were to utilize the lot width
incentive.
So here first I have illustrated the existing block with its 16 lots highlighted in bright
yellow that 10-foot reduction in what it might look like on the existing 50-foot wide lots.
This development is an R6, so 50 feet width is their existing minimum lot width.
That could be reduced to 40 feet.
And then next I have displayed a reimagined version of that block showing 40-foot wide
lots, and in that scenario they could fit 20 lots instead of 16 lots.
That subdivision overall had 316 total homes.
If they were to utilize an incentive like this, they would likely be able to create
more homes, and 63 of those 316 homes would be dedicated to low-income households and
be sold to low-income households.
So staff did conduct public engagement as per the direction of this commission.
Most notably staff hosted a town hall on Monday, August 5th.
This was the invitations were sent out to development services developer town hall email
group, which reaches many, many folks.
Approximately 30 were in attendance.
That was a mix of developers and residents who were interested and invested.
To accommodate those who may not be able to attend the town hall, staff also attached
to every invitation and to the posting on the website a version of the presentation
provided to you in July, as well as a form to directly provide feedback, just reviewing
the presentation and saying what you think.
And that received 11 responses as well.
Primarily, the feedback from both residents and developers wasn't interested in seeing
stronger incentives that would increase developer buy-in.
A summary of the feedback that was received during that town hall and an exact copy of
everything staff received virtually is included in exhibit 3 for your review.
In response to that, staff did hear two suggestions that could be incorporated into the existing
proposal, which I'll show here.
This is the affordability table as previously presented, but with two adjustments.
One suggestion that we heard was we could increase the ratio of incentives for the same
amount of affordability, so starting that table at three.
So in this scenario, a developer could use up to three incentives and provide 20 percent
of their homes as affordable and then scale up from there, and only hitting that maximum
65 percent at eight incentives.
An additional suggestion that we heard was standardizing the duration of affordability
to 30 years.
This could prove to make the program more accessible to a developer just by having it
be the same across the table.
If the commission is interested in either of these changes, these are changes we could
make, would not have to do both, could take one or the other, could take neither.
Moving on from that, there are three options today.
First, to proceed to a public hearing August 23rd as originally proposed without any changes.
To proceed to a public hearing August 23rd with adjustments either and/or of the two
that I just showed you, increasing that ratio of incentives per affordable units, starting
that table at three incentives, and/or standardizing that duration of affordability to 30 years,
regardless of the number of incentives utilized.
If this commission would like to suggest substantial changes or if additional feedback is going
to be required, staff will request to postpone that August 28th public hearing to have sufficient
time to make those changes.
With that, that is all that I have for you today.
I want to appreciate, I want to thank you for your time and your consideration.
I appreciate you, and I'm looking forward to the discussion.
Thank you.
Commission Perot.
Thank you, Chair.
I have a couple of questions on the 30-year versus the increasing years.
Can you educate us on why that might be a request?
I imagine it might have to do with financing or other terms or management.
Just help me understand why that is beneficial.
Yeah.
To elaborate a little bit more, that suggestion came from a statewide housing advocate who
was suggesting that we do that to line up more with other federal affordability programs,
such as the housing tax credit program and other such things.
Additionally, just protecting residents from a situation where they might not, might need
to leave in a quicker way than 30 years.
So that was that suggestion.
Thank you.
And then also, I know a lot of effort has gone into this, specifically in the height
incentive.
I noticed that that doesn't allow any modification or ... I'm not sure what words to use.
The compatibility requirements that we have, which is, I think, 40 feet within 50 feet
of a property line and then 50 feet after 100 feet, that sort of thing, are not amended
or relaxed due to this.
Can you explain how staff came to that recommendation, as opposed to trying to amend them a little
bit better?
I can see Angie coming up.
Do you want me to just pass that one to you?
Yeah.
Angie Mingler is a development review manager, and I've been working a little bit with Leah
and her team on these incentives.
A lot of this comes down to, we're trying to find a bit of a balance and a good place
to start with these incentives.
We have the height and transition areas built into the DDC to protect residential uses in
those zoning districts against incompatible height.
Because this is being implemented as a by-write, they're not required to do an SUP, or a zoning,
or anything of that nature.
These would be things that would be approved at the staff level, and that height transition
could be somewhat jarring, a 40-foot residential structure next to what was 65 feet, but now
has an additional 20% on top of it.
Allowing those as blanket statements didn't feel like the right starting place.
We wanted to keep those areas of transitions and those protected areas for our residential
uses.
Okay.
Thank you.
Then I guess one more question, and then I'll have some direction.
More on the affordability side, sorry.
I take it some of this was put together by speaking to other cities in Texas, and that
sort of thing.
Is that right?
Correct.
Yes.
Okay.
I know my question last time about residential in commercial zoning districts, are you aware
that Austin in particular has an ordinance, which technically it was passed at a separate
time from the affordability unlocked program, but it basically works in context or in concert
with it to allow by-write multifamily within several commercial districts?
Yes.
Staff is aware of that.
Staff has studied Austin's programs pretty extensively.
What I would say is, again, kind of speaking to what Angie just said, this is a starting
point for staff.
If these go well or if we see an opportunity to expand it, staff will be returning to you
to suggest that.
However, this is a starting point that staff can feel confident about.
As we discussed a little bit, it is a lot easier to scale up than to end up having to
scale back if there's something negative that happens in relation to starting a little bit
bigger than this.
Similar to how those weren't necessarily passed at the same time, they aren't considered
off the table.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
I understand staff is trying to get something started that hasn't had a lot of discussion
in the community and that sort of thing.
Ultimately, I feel like often we bring a trowel to something where we need a backhoe four
years ago.
While I understand that reticence to move too quickly, I think we're in a situation
where we haven't been moving quickly enough for a long time.
Can I give direction?
Sure.
My direction would be to agree with the community's feedback, specifically about the 30-year recommendation.
I would also say that I'm in favor of putting in a residential income in the SC Zoning District
in particular under this program as an additional option.
I would also say that I completely understand the desire to make sure the transition areas
are not very different, and I would say that most of these things, the Austin ordinance
gives a 50% or greater bonus to, and we're only going with a 20%.
I would say on the height restriction incentive to include a 20% reduction in the distances
for the compatibility areas, but not the heights, so that's a relatively small difference.
It means that if you had a compatibility of 40 feet at 50 feet away from the property
line, now it's 40 feet away from the property line.
Then lastly, I would say that when I look at the list of incentives, to me, I know you
said the parking was one that was very well received, probably has the most value so far.
The height one, I think, has a lot of potential to have a lot of value, and then if it's the
commission and our councils wish to allow multi-family within the SC Zoning District,
I think that would have a lot of value.
My proposal for that chart, instead of starting at three or having more than one incentive
per column, I would say those three incentives count as one incentive point, if you will,
and then all of the other incentives count as half a point, such that you could get two
of those other incentives for the same number of columns that you move over, by moving over
one column.
Does that make sense?
I am hearing you, yes.
There's a lot of stuff in that, so please ask if you need more detail.
I'll check with Haley.
Haley, do you have all that?
Okay.
This is a collaborative effort, so okay.
Okay.
All right.
Commissioner Villareal.
Thanks.
I'm not too hung up either way, but I would like to voice my support for proceeding with
staff's written plan.
Okay.
Questions?
Comments?
Yeah, I heard a lot of what you said.
The problem is I'm not sure that it's been studied and looked at in a way that we would
all know exactly what we're giving direction to, so I guess help me there.
I'm not sure how we want to proceed with your timeline.
The standardization, I actually really like that.
I think that's a great thing to change.
And then, yeah, I'm probably okay with their feedback of starting the table with three
incentives too.
I mean, the thing is you need developer buy-in for this, and the more we put out there what
they want, the more buy-in that we're going to get and we're actually going to have this
do something.
So, yeah, Commissioner Thacker.
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, my next question was going to be what did the one developer say?
Oh, yeah.
So, when I say the one developer, that was the one developer that submitted online feedback.
There were, I think, at least four developers who identified themselves as such, and that's
not individuals, that's groups who are at the town hall physically, so I don't want you
to think we just heard from one.
But, yeah, from developers, we did hear a mix of that height in parking, landscaping
area and setbacks were all useful.
We especially heard that from multi-family developers.
We did hear that what would be more helpful would be things like reimbursements for impact
fees and things of that nature.
That's something we're exploring with bonds stuff, and we do have a developer fee grant
that is able to be utilized that does a similar function to that, but for this specifically,
which is just zoning specific, we heard that some of these would be helpful, would be utilized.
We did hear stronger incentives would be utilized more.
Can I follow up, Chair?
Of course.
Thank you, Chair.
I would like to hear more feedback on what they feel about the resale of the property.
I honestly don't think that we got any feedback about that specifically, to be honest with
you.
I read it, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm a little too dense on this, but 2.125B, 50%
of net proceeds from the sale shall be paid to the city?
That's specifically in a scenario where they sell it at market rate, so they're essentially
breaking their agreement with us.
In that scenario, they're not holding true to their commitment to be affordable for 30
years, as it may be.
That's if they sold it to someone who was not going to maintain that commitment.
Okay.
In that case, those proceeds would go back into another affordability program, essentially.
Okay.
Did I summarize that well?
Yeah.
Danger.
That makes sense, because you don't want someone to get all these incentives and say, "Oh,
we're going to do this," and then ... Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
We've got to have something to hold true.
Anybody else want to offer any feedback, comments, direction?
I don't know exactly how you should proceed at this juncture.
With some of the things Commissioner Pruitt mentioned, I would think we'd need a little
bit more hashing out to want to put in here, or how do you ... Yeah.
Sorry.
Okay.
As the Director of Community Services, I think typically how we handle this when we're in
front of council is if there's a majority of you, then then we would take that information
back and make those adjustments.
If it is from one, then we hear it, and we'll look at that in the future guidance, but we're
just waiting.
If we've got majority direction from you that you're good with this, then we'll come back
with that, with what we're proposing.
Again, if there's more of you that have the recommendations to look at some of those, then
that's what we would do.
I definitely like the adjustments that are here.
I think Commissioner Pruitt said that as well, Commissioner Villarreal did not.
I don't know how others feel with regard to ... Go ahead, Commissioner Thacker.
Commissioner Pruitt, can I just ... Thank you, Chair.
Can I just get some clarification on how you want it redone, and I may not be hearing it
correctly.
Do you feel like we're giving more value to certain aspects of the adjustments than others?
What do you ... Yeah.
I apologize if I mangled the confusing and not as important with the simple and more
important in my mind.
The residential multifamily in commercial, I think is important.
The allowance of a little bit of that 20% distance in the transition areas, I think
is important.
My suggestion for aligning these things with the value of them was more complex, and I
don't even know if it's right.
I would more say my feedback is really, "Hey, staff, if after all of this feedback you've
heard, you think some adjustment to the point system is warranted, then let's give our best
stab at it."
Ultimately, we're setting up an economy of points and values, and we don't know exactly
how much dollar value these things have.
I don't have any particular stake in that.
I offered a suggestion of saying, "Let's take the three that I thought, maybe my impression
is not right, of the most valuable, and then basically say those are worth twice as much
as all the others, and then all the others you would get two incentives per column of
motion, and then those three big ones you would get one per column."
Again, that's complex, and I don't want to hang things up because of that, because really
my feedback is, "I understand we're not going to hit it right on the bag.
Let's just make sure that staff, after the feedback, thinks that we're doing the right
thing as far as the values of incentives."
I think assigning a monetary value to those things, or looking at how it benefits in that
way, I think that's totally appropriate.
I just don't want us to get into the weeds on coming up with Simone Biles' vault score
from trying to figure this out.
Make sure that it's easy to read.
That explanation makes complete sense to me.
I'm still a little confused at what we're trying to help them, give them direction and
this timeline that they want to be on.
I think thought has already been given.
Go ahead, Haley, then.
Just to say, if I could make a suggestion, maybe we just go around the table and everyone
say which of those three on the screen they're good with, or if not one of those, then what
alternative they would propose.
I did just want to note, there's two different dates on there, but August 28th is the correct
PNC date for the next one.
That is a mistake.
Thank you.
The 28th would?
Yes, so all of those would be August 28th in place of 23rd, if you're looking at the
screen.
Okay.
I don't know where 23rd came from.
Yeah, we would actually be voting on this item on the 28th, is what you're saying.
That was the original plan.
Yeah.
The public hearing date.
Correct.
Got it.
Okay.
I think that's fine.
I think, yeah, I guess let's go ahead.
I assume you're going to be with number three.
Two B, thumbs up.
Two A, whatever staff thinks is the right adjustment, if any, to that, I'm fine with.
And then three, I really want to see multifamily in the SC Zoning District, as well as some
reduction in the distance of the compatibility zones.
Okay.
Commissioner Padron?
Of the three, I favor proceed to public hearing on August 23rd with adjustments as presented.
So increase the ratio of incentives.
Second there.
Okay.
Commissioner Villarreal, you are?
Sticking with one.
Okay.
And Commissioner Thaggard?
Okay.
And Commissioner Cole?
Okay.
I would say one, but, I mean, I'm not opposed to two.
Well, you got to pick one.
I mean, we got to pick one.
Two.
Okay.
Yeah, and that's where I'm falling as well, which I guess would be four of us.
It's not that I don't hear or like what you're saying.
My thinking is it's throwing some confusion into this, and we're going to have to rethink
it and discuss it, and then it's going to throw this timeline down, and that's my issue
with it.
It's not that I am necessarily opposed to it, but staff, nor us, nor anyone out there
has had any discussion about just automatically allowing multifamily NSC or some of these
other setbacks.
You know what I mean?
So that's why I'm hesitant to want to do that because I think it delays things, and I think
it would be better to move forward, and as Leah said, then let's hear this and keep discussing
this because we can always add that in.
That's just kind of where my brain is on that.
So I guess with what we discussed, the four are agreeing to both of those adjustments
as you have here.
So does that help?
That helps me, yes.
Okay.
But please do, you know, take everything that Commissioner Pruitt made, some great points
that need to be looked at and possibly added to this, you know, sooner than later.
Absolutely heard.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
We've got one more work session item.
That is 3B, PZ24167.
That is Received Report Holder Discussion Regarding North Central Texas Council, the
Government's Demographic Projections Update.
Hello.
Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission.
Farhan Butt, Deputy Director, Transportation Services Division.
I'm here to present regional demographic forecast process that NCDCOG is following to update
these demographics that are used as input to the regional travel demand model and for
decision-making process when it comes to transportation investments.
This presentation would include key items that focus on the whole process that NCDCOG
is following, including base data, county-level forecast targets, preliminary demographics,
and estimated traffic congestion levels, and, you know, what are the different options when
it comes to expansion and the growth process and local review process.
These aggregate travel demand forecast models are highly sophisticated tools that rely on
a lot of input datasets of different category, including demographic projections, household
incomes, and geographical boundaries at different resolutions.
And all of this data is fed to these aggregate models, which are mathematical models, essentially,
and then through the estimation process, these models forecast the output that would be used
for in the form of different scenarios.
This output is typically used for transportation investment decision-making process.
And mostly it is since they are aggregate in nature, the output would be used for regional
transportation investment decision.
Some of the input for the base data would include stable data source, including census
data tracks and work data, work journey to work data, American Community Survey, and
any data set that could reflect on existing conditions.
Base data is basically the existing condition level where the model will forecast what the
existing conditions look like when it comes to transportation systems and their performance.
And demographic synthesis is one of the inputs as well, where demographic projections are
used at different resolutions, be it traffic analysis zones or census tracks or block groups.
All of those, that information is aggregated typically on TAC level, which is traffic analysis
zone level, and then fed to these models to get the output in terms of traffic or transportation
level of service on the facilities.
And market activities captured as well in terms of what level of residential and commercial
activities are there in these geographic boundaries.
And then based on all of this data, different scenarios are developed and then modeled to
get the estimates.
Just to give a brief idea of what this projection resolution look like for the model or modeling
tools, which are essentially on aggregate level or simulation levels or micro simulation
level as well.
This is on aggregate level, this is what it would look like, where we will have city limits,
subdivisions, parks, block groups, and roads.
And these blue boundaries that we are seeing would be on aggregate TAC level, which will
include all this data for the model.
So that is one resolution.
But when we talk about projection resolutions on where we work, on what kind of resolution
we work with to provide, to aggregate these inputs of different demographics, this would
be the level where we would go into finer resolution, offer land use, we could use photos,
and also features that include different developments, from large to smaller developments as well.
The input development process with NCTCOG is based on finer grid level, millions of
grids.
So we have flexibility to use from TAC level, which is rather aggregate, which is blue colored,
these blue colored zones that I am showing, to the finest resolution of grid structure.
So using all of this data, NCTCOG has already forecasted the data sets for different horizon
years.
2019 is base year where they are taking as existing conditions.
I know we are in 2024, but I think for modeling purposes to get a stable data set, they have
to rely on previous years where the data is stable and can be utilized with minimal skewness
in data.
So 2019 is set for this go round, which is every four years they update the data, this
modeling data.
2019 is the base year.
So that means essentially the model is assuming that this is the existing condition.
Based on the existing condition, the target population forecast shows that the city of
Denton, oh sorry, county of Denton, these are county level forecasts, county of Denton
is pretty much over 100%, you would see 100% over 100%, actually 110% increase, percentage
increase, percentage change, by between 2019 and 2050.
So that's just, and there's another important element to demographic data set that is fed
to the models, which is employment, which shows, and I apologize, this highlighted color
should be on Denton, for some reason it displayed maybe due to the different software application.
Denton shows again in terms of population over 127% growth when it comes to employment,
and that's pretty significant, and when we are talking about between 2019 to 2050.
And so we could look into the city level forecast as well, which shows that by 2035, Denton,
city of Denton would be in top 10 cities when it comes to population in the region.
And by 2050, this goes to seventh, rank seventh.
And the population would be literally doubled, more than double actually, when we compare
to 2019.
And then NCTCOG's forecast shows that when it comes to employment, city of Denton would
be around seventh rank by 2035, and then by 2050, this would be sixth, ranking sixth,
when it comes to employment, more than double, doubling the employment.
So this is just the magnitude, just touching the magnitude of what kind of magnitude we
are looking at when it comes to demographic growth in our city, and how this could change
the transportation matrix as well.
Next three slides will show you the resolution, how the resolution on population density changes
when it comes to 2019, 2035, and 2050.
These are the three major horizon years.
2019 is the base year, 2035, and 2050 are the phases, where NCTCOG believes that they
will have phases for future forecasts.
So imagine this is 2019, and it's showing population density.
And so for reference, we have Denton labels there, and then this whole northern block
is Denton County, and the Denton label shows the major Denton city area.
And see how population density is changing color, which is going from lighter shades
of green to even to blue.
And then further, by 2050, it just goes to darker shades of blue, which shows towards
maximum density per square mile.
We have a similar trend, actually, more drastic increase in terms of employment.
So this is 2019 employment density, and see how these shades of blue are increasing when
it comes to Denton.
And of course, it is relative, but the change is there.
The significant change of employment, which is over, I think, twice.
It goes to twice when it comes to the range between 2019 to 2050.
This map shows the traffic congestion level in terms of level of service changes, the
red being severe congestion.
And so in the lighter shades of red or pink is light congestion.
So look how that area in close to Denton city would change when it comes to a range between
2023 and 2045 and 2050.
And so this essentially shows us that the growth is there, the population growth is
there, the employment growth is there.
And in order to tackle these demographic growth challenges, we need to provide appropriate
transportation options, including multimodal options, including a diverse set of transportation
strategies.
And that emphasizes that we need to start looking into that.
And that's what NCTCOG is emphasizing as well.
They have written a memo of Transit 2.0, which we are also considering for this process.
Again, 2019 demand flow currents, this is basically showing if we remove all the barriers
for this growth in demographics where people would travel when it comes to 2019 at this
range of 2019 to 2050.
And so this is 2019, which is existing conditions for the model.
And if we remove all the barriers and tell that these growing demographics that there's
no latency, no congestion, and we can travel wherever we would like to travel and look
how the model trends.
Look, the growth is going towards all different directions and towards Denton as well.
And so that's just a small, there are many other slides we could include, but I think
these are the main ones where we could show how the demographics over the years, in coming
years in the near future, are changing, drastically changing, and we have to act fast to make
sure that we address this change.
So NCTCOG is now asking local jurisdictions to provide the feedback.
They have prepared these forecasts using the best practice statistical methods and mathematical
models.
They have confidence, but they are saying that, look, we are still giving the local
jurisdiction opportunity that if you feel that we have missed something when it comes
to population, employment density, population densities, or you have some developments which
they missed, we have this opportunity to make sure that we include those in these projections
and then so that when the time comes for the transportation investment decisions, our feedback
is there and then our developments are there and they can impact these decisions.
For that, we are, so that's essentially why the local review is required because we have
to make sure that these new developments or population changes are reflected as the city
sees them or staff sees them.
And so here we are using this tool that has been provided by, it is a web-based application.
We are, staff is looking at this, using this tool, and then we'll be providing the feedback.
In this process, we are going, we will be looking at 2019, 2035, and 2050 projections.
We have developed the process where we have a team, interdepartmental team that we are,
staff is relying on, and then we are also, as part of this process, reaching out to external
stakeholders, including developers, hospitals, school, DISD, many, many stakeholders.
We are reaching out and asking them that, you know, how your development will, how your
organization is planning to expand and in terms of population and employment, what feedback
do you have?
All of this will be incorporated.
The timeline is August 30 to provide this feedback, but staff is targeting that before
August 25, we will have it ready, and it will be reviewed by many departments.
And once finalized, we will submit this information to the NCT call.
And this process is then repeated every four years.
So next, you know, this will be stable.
The model will start using them for the investment process, and then once the process is complete,
it will be reiterated, the base year would be changed, and then the projection years
would change as well.
We are reaching out to different departments, and we hope to, we have frequent meetings
set up with this team, internal team, including city staff and some leadership members as
well.
And then we hope to complete this process.
If there are any questions, I'm here to answer.
Thank you for your time.
Questions?
Yeah, Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
I could dig for hours, but I won't do that, I promise you.
I mostly found it interesting that you talked about how at several different geographic
levels the land uses are considered within creating this model.
When we hear land use applications, there's frequently a traffic study, traffic something,
TIS impact.
Words are failing me today.
And I've always had a hard time reconciling the trip generation manual numbers that get
used within the TISs with the, well, but if we are essentially mixing uses more than they
were before, trip length should shorten and therefore congestion should go down.
Can you help us understand how we should process those types of things?
So essentially the process has to rely on trip generation manual.
That's pretty standard when it comes to traffic TIAs or TISs, and then corridor studies as
well.
The challenge is that, and that's where this demographic projection would come into play,
because if, imagine, we are part of the region in that model that NCTCOG is using doesn't
reflect those muds or those mixed use developments or any large industrial development and is
not reflecting the employment categories, which include industrial or office, then it
means that we are missing that opportunity and model will read that, nope, this is still
rural, this is not developing, and I'm not going to, the model will not emphasize on
developing any, will not favor that scenario.
And the model will favor some other scenario where those developments are coming.
So that's why I think in the process we have to ensure that it's not only trip generation
manual would come at a second stage where we have land use, but to begin with, if we
don't have land use correctly incorporated into the model, the TIA would read that land
use as rural or not some development, then trip generation manual fails.
So that's why it is essential that we incorporate those new land uses, those new developments.
It won't be precise, but if we could get 80% curve of diminishing return, I think this
will be good.
- Thank you.
- Anybody else?
Absolutely fascinating data.
Thank you for sharing that, truly.
- Thank you so much.
- Wow, yeah.
- Thanks.
- That was really great.
Appreciate you being here to do that and share that with us.
Thank you.
Okay, that concludes our work session.
So we will adjourn at 610 and reconvene at 630 for our regular meeting in council chambers.
Thank you.
- Good evening and welcome to the city of Netons planning and zoning commission meeting
for Wednesday, August 14th, 2024.
Thank you for your patience with our quorum present.
Call us to order at 635 PM.
First item of business on our agenda is the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance and also to the
Texas flag.
- I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for
which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
On the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one nation,
indivisible.
Yeehaw.
- Thank you.
Our first item of business is to consider the approval of our minutes from July 17th
and July 24th.
Commissioner Villarreal.
- Move approval.
- Commissioner Cole.
- Second.
- Commissioner Villarreal, is that the approval of both minutes?
- That is correct.
- Okay.
And Commissioner Cole.
All right.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's vote, please.
That motion carries 6-0.
That will take us to our consent agenda for this evening.
Commissioner Villarreal.
- Move approval.
- Commissioner Cole.
- Second.
- Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval of the consent agenda.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's vote, please.
That motion carries 6-0.
That will take us to our items for individual consideration.
Our first being 4A, FP 240026.
Hello, Sean.
- Good evening, Chair and members of the commission.
Sean Jacobson, Associate Planner, here to present FP 2426.
Let's get this pulled up here.
All right.
And this is a proposed plat for the Asintio Ventures Addition.
This would be a two-lot plat.
They have not yet met our criteria for approval and therefore staff is recommending denial.
But staff has no objection to the requested extension, which would be granted to a date
certain of September 11th, 2024.
Happy to answer any questions.
- Thank you, Sean.
Questions for Sean?
Okay.
I do not see any.
Thank you.
Commissioner Cole?
- I make a motion to approve extension to September 11th, 2024.
- Thank you.
Commissioner Thaggard?
- Second.
- We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of
September 11th, 2024.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's vote, please.
That motion carries 6-0.
That will take us to 4B, FP 240023.
Angie is presenting that item this evening.
- Hey.
Good evening.
Angie Mingleris, Development Review Manager.
This is FP 240023.
This is a final plot for an approximately 15-acre tract of land generally located to
the north of Fish Trap and west of Greenleaf Circle.
The intent of this plot is to create a lot of record, and at the time, the plot does
not meet all of our criteria for approval.
Staff is recommending denial, but have no objection to the requested extension, which
could be granted to September 11th.
Happy to answer any questions.
- Thank you very much.
Any questions for Angie?
Thank you.
Chair can entertain the floor for a motion or discussion.
Commissioner Perrett?
- Move approval of the applicant requested extension to September 11th, 2024.
- Thank you.
Commissioner Thaggard?
- Second.
- Okay.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of September
11th, 2024.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's vote, please.
That motion will carry 6-0.
That'll take us to 4C, FR240005.
Bryce is here for presentation.
Hello.
- Good evening, Commission.
Bryce VanArsdale, Assistant Planner.
This is FR240005.
This is a final replat for approximately 36 acres, one-half mile south of Bonnie Bray Road
and on the north side of Roselon Drive.
While this plot currently does not meet our criteria for approval, staff has no objection
to the requested extension to a date certain of September 11th.
I'll stand for any questions.
- Thank you, Bryce.
Any questions?
Okay.
I do have one card wishing to speak on this item and that is Jennifer Lane.
I'll have you come up and state your name and your time will begin.
Hi.
- Hi there.
Jennifer Lane, Denton, Texas, 76205.
I want to speak on this item just because this is an item of interest to me because
it's in my area.
And the reason I want to speak to it is because I feel no matter how many times I come here
and how much I learn about the city, I always feel naive.
And in this case, back when this property was first being discussed and what was going
to happen to it and all the destruction of the old growth trees on it, there were community
meetings with Kimley Horne.
And I found later that Kimley Horne appears on almost every other city council and planning
and zoning agenda.
And I realized that companies, the engineering companies that the city uses are also the
same ones that the private investors and developers use.
And there's a kind of a have your cake and eat it too quality to this.
And I feel that the city could be more demanding when it could use the court of public opinion
in terms of getting better, more satisfying results for the community.
When the community expresses its desires regarding properties, we're going to see this a lot
in the upcoming weeks and months with so many developments coming forward and so many large
areas with so much old growth forest on them that whereas there may be hesitation regarding
some of the legal structures that affect the state of Texas and then spill over into the
city, what we do have the power to say is, you know, if you guys at such and such a firm
does not satisfy our constituents, our citizens, we don't have to hire you for city projects
and we don't have to use you when you are not really particularly cooperative when we
need you to be.
And Kimley Horne is just one example, but they crop up a lot.
They're on city council agendas all the time and they're the engineer for this property
and it was a struggle to talk with them and way too many trees in that forest were lost
and not enough of what the community was asking for was accomplished regarding the Rose Lawn
property there.
The Eagle Creek, that was a really sad time for Deanie and neighborhood to see what happened
there.
That's it.
Thanks.
Keep your eyes on your people that you hire is my point.
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Okay.
That'll lead us back to the floor for discussion or emotion regarding item four C.
I'll commissioner approve it.
Move approval of the applicant requested extension to a date certain of September 11th, 2024.
Thank you.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
We've got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of September
11th, 2024.
Okay.
Let's vote please.
That motion will carry five one.
That will take us to four D, FR240008.
Hi Julie.
Hi.
Good evening.
I'm Julie Wyatt and I'm presenting FR24-8.
This is a replat within the country lakes edition.
The purpose of it is to remove an easement that is no longer needed nor does it have
any public infrastructure in it.
Staff recommends denial at this time.
They have a few things that they do need to work through in order to meet the criteria
for approval, but we have no objection to the requested extension to September 11th.
This is the first extension request that has come before you.
Thanks, Julie.
Appreciate it.
Bye.
Thanks.
Bye.
Thank you.
Any discussion or motion?
Commissioner Pruitt.
I'll move approval of the applicant requested extension to a date certain of September 11th,
2024.
Thank you.
Commissioner Thagard.
Second.
Got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of September 11th,
2024.
Any discussion?
Okay.
Let's vote, please.
That motion will carry 6-0.
That will take us to 4-E, ZCP 240015.
Mia is here for presentation.
Hi, Mia.
Hello.
Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, Senior Planner, and this item is
a zoning compliance plan for a multifamily residential development in Razor Ranch.
The request, again, is to consider a site plan approval for that multifamily residential
development.
The site is 6.41 acres located at the southeast corner of Crescent Street and East Park Boulevard.
And then surrounding this property and previous ZCP approvals that this body has seen is a
multifamily development to the north and south, the Razor Cottages to the east, and then to
the west is the, across East Park Boulevard is the park, that central park for Razor Ranch.
The zoning for this site or the base zoning for this site under the Razor Ranch overlay
is SMUD 2, which stands for South Mixed Use District 2.
The uses specified for this area are big homes, multifamily residential, single family residential,
and offices.
And this particular site is within the multifamily density zone where we are encouraging density
within the Razor Ranch overlay development.
And so with that, we are looking at their site plans and review, putting them up against
the criteria.
Specifically, we're looking at the recently adopted in Appendix A, ORDDC, Exhibit C2A
and D2 for the architectural and site development standards that are applicable to this site.
And the criteria for approval, we're wanting to make sure that they substantially comply
with the zoning concept and schematic plans for Razor, that they are providing a compatible
arrangement of buildings, that the site plans provides for adequate and safe circulation
of vehicular traffic, and that the plan fully complies with all other sections of the overlay
district.
So just to walk you through some of how they are applying or meeting that criteria.
Again, this is a multifamily residential building.
They are proposing four buildings with 192 units, an amenity building, a pool courtyard,
outdoor courtyard area, a small dark park.
They have parking in relation to the amount of units and bedrooms that they are proposing.
As far as driveway circulations, they have one driveway onto Crescent Street there to
the north where all functions, you can turn in and out right and also go straight to the
development to the north of that, and then to the south to Linden Drive.
Those are right in and right out options.
So full mobility options, vehicular, several pedestrian connections, including those directly
serving the building for that linear, longer building along East Park Boulevard, and again,
some of the site amenities include a pool and courtyard and a dog park, and then that
amenity buildings that they are proposing on the site.
As far as landscaping, they are meeting the minimum requirements at 12% of landscape area
coverage and 47% tree canopy coverage.
They have proposed alternative street tree locations along, not Western University, sorry,
Massachusetts Hypo, that's along Crescent Street there because there is an existing
easement along that property line, so there are alternative locations for street trees
that are supposed to be there placed throughout the site.
They are proposing landscape berms to screen parking where it's visible.
For the most part, we've activated the street frontage with buildings where we've pushed
the buildings right up to the street and the parking is sort of inset, but where there
are gaps and parking could potentially be visible, they've included berms to further
screen that parking.
Additionally, the tree canopy buffer between this multi-family development and the existing
or the not developed yet but plotted out and infrastructure is in place for the Razor cottages
to the east.
There is a significant buffer area there is also.
So here included in your backup are the elevations just to give you an idea of what it looks
like.
As far as building material goes, it is complementary to the rest of that area in Razor, and again,
these are the criteria that we put them up against.
So they are complying with the concept plan that was adopted with the Razor Ranch Overlay
District.
They have provided for compatible arrangements of buildings and do not propose to adversely
impact the adjoining neighborhood.
As you saw on the site plan, they do provide for adequate and safe circulation of vehicular
traffic as well as unique pedestrian connections through the site and to the exterior of the
site, and it does comply with those exhibits that I mentioned earlier that are specific
to this sub area of Razor.
So with that, staff is recommending approval, and I will gladly take any questions you have
at this time.
Thank you very much, Mia.
Any questions for Mia?
Thank you.
Great presentation as always.
Okay, we can open the floor for discussion or a motion.
I will go ahead and move approval of this item as presented.
Commissioner Thaggard?
Second.
Okay, we've got a first and a second for approval.
Any discussion?
Okay, let's go ahead and vote, please.
That motion carries 6-0.
That will take us to 4-F, FR24-0006.
Mia is here for that presentation as well.
Evening again, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hunt, senior planner.
This item is a final replat for Hickory Grove Phase 1A.
This property is located in the city of UTJ, north of West University Drive and west of
Thomas J. Egan Road.
At the time of the publishing of this agenda and the backup, the plat was not ready for
approval, and so staff was recommending denial.
However, we have worked with the applicant since then to get it to a state of approval
to satisfy all of those comments, and so we are recommending approval of this plat this
evening, of the forwarded version, the version that was forwarded to you this afternoon.
Yes, thank you.
With that, I will take any questions you have.
Thank you very much.
Questions?
Thank you.
Commissioner Villarreal?
Move approval.
Commissioner Cole?
Second.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Discussion?
Okay, let's vote, please.
That motion carries 6-0.
That will take us to our public hearings for this evening.
Items 5A, PD23001B and 5B, Z220018B, those are being requested by the applicant to be
postponed indefinitely.
So we will not be taking action on those items other than to close the public hearing.
The public hearings for both of those items were open at our last meeting and they were
left open thinking we would hear the item today.
We will not.
If ever those items do come back before us, that will be renoticed as applicable for that
public hearing at that time.
So with that, I will close both those public hearings for 5A and B, and we will go ahead
and move to 5C, CA240003.
I will open that public hearing and Cameron is here for presentation.
Hi.
Hello.
Good evening Chair, Commission, Cameron Robertson, Principal Planner.
Okay, let me get this full screen on, there we go.
So thank you so much.
We are delighted to present to you all this evening the Design Downtown Denton Plan.
We do have some members of the project team here this evening.
First we have Sean Jacobson.
He is the Deputy Project Manager for the plan, also my right-hand man throughout all of this
when I joined the team in August of 2023.
We do have Gary Packen, Director of Parks and Recreation, as well as Kristen Polito,
our Main Street Program Manager, and then lastly we have Zach Lockrum, our Project Manager
from Men Collaborative.
So before I pass the mic on to Zach, I just wanted to say a few words.
So this plan for Downtown Denton, it really is a community-driven and formulated plan
that truly reflects the love that Dentonites have for their downtown.
Over the course of the last year, through our different forms of engagement, we have
received thousands of comments from Dentonites that demonstrate the importance of downtown's
future success.
The community responses, which include not only their dreams for the area, but also their
concerns, are the foundation of the plan before you all tonight, and we look forward to hearing
your comments.
And with that, I'm going to pass it to Zach.
Thank you, Cameron.
Thank you all.
I'm very excited to be here with you.
My name is Zach Lockrum.
I'm a partner at Men Collaborative, and we have been working with the City of Denton over
the past year to develop the Design Downtown Denton Plan.
I want to also acknowledge the rest of our team.
We've been joined by specialists in transportation, historic preservation, and economic development
from Nelson-Nygard Post Oak Preservation Solutions, Catalyst Urban Planning, and the William
Fulton Group in the development of this plan.
Tonight, I'm going to give you a brief project overview, present some of the highlights of
the Downtown Denton Plan, receive recommendations and discussion from you, and then your role
today is to receive this presentation and take action on the draft plan as endorsed
by our advisory group.
We've been working on this project for about a year.
We started around June of last year.
We've moved through four kind of key phases.
In the first phase, we were working with the community to understand key issues, challenges,
desires, and goals as a part of the planning process.
In the second phase, we developed strategies to reflect on the goals that have been set.
In the final phase, the ACT phase, we were working on implementation strategies for how
we would actually achieve those as a community, and now we are working with you to adopt the
plan.
The study area went from University on the North, Carroll on the West, Eagle on the South,
and then Bell on the East side.
I will mention that, as you all are aware, there has been a parallel process for Southeast
Denton.
We've been working very closely to ensure that this plan, that plan are compatible and
that the edges between these communities, which are of course very, very important,
are compatibly planned throughout that process.
We've had a great deal of public engagement, both from our team as well as the team here
at the City of Denton.
We've really engaged in a hybrid process where we were using both online and in-person ways
of reaching out to people, so anything that we did in person, you had the opportunity
to do online and vice versa.
We've had very literally thousands of Dentonites contribute ideas, thoughts, concerns, and
desires to this process throughout the past year.
Working with our advisory group, we developed a vision statement that puts forward what
it is that we're really trying to achieve with this 10- to 15-year vision, as well as
defining specific community priorities in these eight areas, so all of the recommendations
that have been developed are set to help achieve one or more of these community priorities.
Overall, the plan has 23 recommendations, and I'm not going to go through all of them
today, but I'm going to give you a pretty quick overview of some of the highlights,
some of the key action items that have been really defined by the community through prioritization
exercises that we've done with them, as well as some of the first-step items that need
to be done in order to help see the plan be implemented in the long term.
The plan is divided into four sections, and in general, these sections move from the areas
where we have the most control as a city to the areas where we have more influential control
but are really working with our private sector developers and private sector actors.
The first section focuses on utilizing downtown Denton's street space.
The streets and public realm are actually most of the property that the city owns and
has control of within the downtown, and so making sure that we have strategies to utilize
them that meet the goals of downtown from the perspective of economic development, from
the perspective of community priorities, walkability, and so on are extremely important.
Throughout this process, one of the main things that we did hear from the community is that
one of the things that makes downtown so special, one of the competitive advantages economically
is the walkability, so a lot of these recommendations do focus on the ways that we can continue
to make downtown a walkable, safe, enjoyable environment.
The first set of recommendations focuses on some of the short-term potential in actually
re-utilizing street space in slightly different ways.
These are recommendations, in most cases, moving from a four-lane cross-section to action
on some of the major streets around downtown that are put forward to improve walkability
but also safety.
A lot of traffic incidents, which we mapped, happen when cars are turning.
When you have four lanes, oftentimes cars are stopping in the middle of the street to
turn.
People don't see, run into things, a lot of those things, sorts of challenges happen,
so what the plan suggests is actually replacing some of those four-lane cross-sections with
three lanes.
So it would be one lane that's going through and then turn lanes so that we can actually
avoid some of those challenges.
This also has the advantage of creating some new opportunities for additional parking space,
for additional pedestrian space, or for additional space for planted trees in the long term.
The second recommendation that I'll talk briefly about is the idea of pedestrian priority routes
and the Denton Chill Streets.
When we worked through prioritization with the community, this was the top vote-getting
item, which I thought was very exciting.
The concept is that there would be a network of prioritized streets connecting the universities,
connecting the transit sector, connecting downtown, where we would really be prioritizing
pedestrian comfort.
And as a big part of that, we can all recognize from a day like today, Denton is extremely
hot and we want to make sure that we are creating opportunities for people to walk comfortably
downtown.
The idea of a chill street is a street where we have really prioritized shade and other
cooling technologies as a way of creating microclimates that really encourage people
to be able to comfortably move around even in Texas's heat.
The second set of recommendations focuses on the network of public spaces in and around
downtown.
These are recommendations we've worked very closely with the Parks and Recreation Department
on as we have moved them forward.
One of the biggest pieces of the plan is a focus on a new master plan for Quaker Town
Park.
This plan was undertaken with a great deal of additional public engagement above and
beyond what we did for the plan as a whole, including sessions where we worked with descendants
of people who had been displaced from Quaker Town in the early 20th century, really focusing
on how people wanted to create monuments and memorialize and talk about that history, while
also creating a plan for the current uses in the park, as well as making sure that we
are able and capable to continue to expand on all of the incredible historical resources,
as well as all of the great festivals that we all love in that space.
Sorry, I think I skipped one there.
The second recommendation in this section focuses on looking at some of the vacant lots
in and around downtown and really looking at which ones of those lots would really make
the most sense for expansion of park facilities, as well as opportunities to connect economic
development.
This is an example of what something like that could look like.
This is a vacant lot that is right on the square that is currently for sale.
In this rendering, what we show is a way in which public space right on the square could
be expanded, where we could add some additional business space.
There's a cafe within this design, as well as flexible vendor booths, which is something
that we've heard quite a bit, our desire of the community and the community that does
a lot of the festivals and things like that within and around downtown.
This particular site also creates a wonderful view of the courthouse, as well as giving
us a really exciting option to create an accessible ramp that helps with the grade change between
Austin Street and the courthouse square itself.
In addition to that, we have suggested several different ways in which some of the underutilized
streets or what are often called the mews right around the square could be redesigned
to allow for partial closures, allow for more festival street type opportunities, allow
for more events as well.
The third section of the plan focuses on development and really thinking about how we can continue
to build on downtown's character and assets with some of the development opportunities.
One of the biggest opportunities of the plan and in fact one of the reasons that this plan
is happening right now is that there's a significant portion of downtown south of the square that
up until very recently was in the floodplain, which really restricted development opportunity
within it.
Looking at that as a key example, we've begun to envision what redevelopment and infill
development within that area could look like and how we would leverage public investments
in order to get the types of development that we would want to see there.
You can see in this particular drawing, which is again, an example of what could happen
in the space.
In addition to the private sector development that's happened around the southern downtown,
there's also a proposal for a new park to help anchor that space as well as a new performing
arts center.
Another key recommendation that we've made is to really encourage downtown living.
As opposed to some cities, downtown is not your densest residential area.
Actually the highest density areas in the city are just to the west of downtown mostly
around UNT.
There is a significant amount of built up market desire as well as opportunity in actually
creating additional residential units.
In addition to that, it creates a more active street front, helps support businesses as
well.
So we're asking to actually set a specific goal for new development over the next 10
years that we believe is market supported.
That would be a mix of market rate and affordable units.
We've of course wanted to make sure that we're strengthening historic preservation opportunities,
that we're making sure that we're taking our incentive packages that we have and continuing
to promote those, as well as making sure that our historic facilities are taking advantage
of federal and state tax credits as well.
We've developed public realm design guidelines and zoning recommendations that would help
us ensure that the private sector development that happens in and around downtown is meeting
our standards, that our developers are putting together a good public realm, that we're making
sure that we're connecting sidewalks, we're connecting the chill streets, we're making
sure that all of those happen.
We've also within that created specific opportunities for ways that places like restaurants or venues
would be able to utilize street space for things like queuing, for things like outdoor
seating as well.
Finally, while we know that much of what happens needs to be done in the private sector, we've
created a space in the plan where we've pointed towards certain things that the community
has told us that they desire so that developers will know, if I were to come forward with
something in this list, it would be something that the community would likely smile upon.
Some of those include public and shared parking, that of course is something that the city
would actually take a role in.
Public market or other types of market spaces, hotels, downtown hotel has been a very, very
strong desire, as well as an expansion of music and art venues downtown.
Our section of the plan focuses on some of the policy and programmatic elements that
we need in order to actually see the plan successfully implemented.
As I just mentioned, we've talked about music venues and that's one of the key areas that
has really come up as something both that people love, but also as an opportunity for
us to really expand on as an economic strategy within downtown.
We have a section that focuses on the ways that we can update our policy and regulation
to help support the music and nightlife within Denton.
Another recommendation is actually to develop a performing arts center.
We've given an example in the plan of the Midtown Arts and Theater Center in Houston.
This is a facility that has multiple stages, has multiple performance spaces, but also
has offices for local nonprofits that has rehearsal spaces.
Something like this is something that could be done really in collaboration with area
universities as well.
We've created recommendations around how to expand programs that will support small businesses.
Again, talking about the things that people love the most about downtown, the small unique
Denton-only businesses are one of the most essential assets.
I had people tell me flat out, if the result of this plan is that downtown ends up with
a Chipotle, we've maybe done something wrong.
There's a really strong desire to make sure that we're supporting our small businesses
and we've recommended a number of ways that we can incentivize and really help continue
to develop that.
We talk about really working to create a unified downtown brand, making sure that that's a
part of advertising, making sure that businesses together are really advertising that downtown
experience, and that's something that can be done collaboratively.
Finally, we've also made recommendations around some of the tools where we can receive additional
funding and make sure that there's directed funding for downtown that downtown then does
not currently have.
Specifically, we talk about the expansion of the downtown tours as well as the establishment
of a public improvement district.
Having a district would allow dedicated staff that would allow the expansion of things like
the downtown ambassador programs, other programs for maintenance, for safety, as well as project
delivery throughout.
So, our next steps.
This downtown plan, just to remind you, will amend and update the Denton 2040 Comprehensive
Plan.
We currently plan to bring this to city council on September 17th, after which we're excited
to see implementation happen.
So, with that, I will close and open to questions.
Thank you very much, Zach.
Any questions?
It's time for Zach.
Commissioner Thacker.
I don't have any questions.
I just wanted to thank you guys for all the hard work.
This is beautiful.
Thank you.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
Great presentation.
Thank you.
I think for the benefit of the public, because some of these things get difficult to grasp
what the process is, can you explain how some of the recommendations would be achieved through
private investment, whereas others would be something the city would take a more leading
leadership role in so that people can understand how that combination occurs?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Any planning process is usually a combination of private investment, public investment,
and often philanthropic dollars as well.
The way that we've set up the plan and really thinking about some of the priorities for
implementation are really making sure that the city is kind of in there first establishing
the tools that it needs to in order to really see the vision achieved through private sector
investment as well.
So that includes looking at new funding sources.
One example that I'll give the city, the downtown actually already has a Texas designated cultural
district, but Denton has never applied for any funding through that program.
So making sure that we're bringing in state and federal funding where it makes sense,
as well as establishing local funding sources that are going to be able to help with any
of the incentives or public types of investments that need to be made.
Then the city also has the ability to set regulation, which helps really drive some
of the development.
One of the things that I've been really excited about with this team is that we have had an
economic development consultant.
We actually have two economic development consultants on the team.
One of them is specifically focused on the public sector incentives and has spent his
whole career really working with cities to make sure that they have everything set up
moving towards their goals.
The other one is someone who is focused on really understanding how developers work.
And so being able to really work with them to say, what do we need to do in order to
see the type of market response that we expect and making sure within that, that we're not
doing anything as a city that the market would do by itself either.
So there's a balance in that.
But everything really is intended to really work as a net that each of these different
actors are really working together to move towards that common vision.
Thank you for that question.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
I know you didn't go over it, Zach, but part of this plan does have an implementation part
of it as well.
It's set up in goals as we have like year one, what goals would be year five.
Yeah, and the implementation section, the sort of phasing of the implementation section
was based really on three criteria.
One of them was whether or not the implementation of that action needed to be done in order
for other things to happen.
So if there was a path dependency, the second was a community prioritization exercise that
we actually did with the community, had several hundred people contribute their thoughts about
what they were most excited about, what they wanted to see first.
And then the third was just cost.
So really looking at what are some of the small things that we can take on earlier,
whereas other things might take longer in terms of additional design or grants that need to
be acquired, other things like that in order to move them forward.
Thank you.
Any other questions at this time for Zach?
Commissioner Perdomo.
Hi, yes.
Thank you for your presentation as well.
My question is regarding public engagement.
Was there a demographic analysis done to determine which populations may have been represented
in providing information to make sure that there wasn't a particular group or subsect
of the population that was missed?
Yeah.
Because a significant portion of our engagement was online, we weren't able to capture full
demographics as a part of it.
What we did do is as we were working through the events that we were going through, as
we were working through observation from who we saw coming to different events, we did
look in targeted ways about going out to specific events that would appeal to specific demographics
in order to make sure that we were getting specific feedback in those ways.
There were also, as I said, specific engagement that was specifically for descendants of people
who had been displaced from Quaker Town as a part of that.
So that's sort of the way that we did it, but we did not collect demographic information
throughout.
Yeah.
But I know you do have a copy of the five pages of engagement that has happened over
the year and the various places that they have captured comments.
Don't think I have any other questions at this time for you, but stand by, we may have
some later.
Thank you.
Okay, I do have some cards wishing to speak on this item.
First one I have is Charles Lee.
He'll state your name.
Your time will begin.
Hi.
Yeah.
My name is Charles Lee.
Good evening, everybody.
I just want to say that I'm in objection to this because I'm sorry, I'm just not really
feeling this because the whole color scheme, I really just don't like the color scheme
at all.
It's just not me.
I don't know what you're trying to do there, but I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm like a very patriotic
person and the dent in colors are red, white, and blue.
I don't know what you're trying to do here or what you're trying to represent.
It's not representing my culture at all.
I just don't like the color scheme at all.
And then you want to talk about you're going to do a lot of lanes and bike lanes and things
like that for walking and all that type of stuff.
I'm sorry.
Nobody's going to walk in Texas heat.
Nobody's going to just jump in their car, they're going to drive down there, they're
going to park, they're going to get out, and they're going to go back in their car and
they're going to drive away.
Nobody is walking.
I'm sorry.
They're just not going to do that.
And if you're going to start putting bike lanes down there, those roads are too tight
and then it's going to be real dangerous.
And I don't know how you're going to make that because on Windsor Road you put bike lanes
over on Windsor Road where I live at.
Nobody uses them.
You're just cutting down on road space for nothing at all.
And this is going to, I don't know, you didn't say anything about money.
This is going to cost a fortune.
And everybody's complaining about property taxes and how the property taxes keep coming
up.
But you guys keep spending all this money on all these things, but then people complain
they have property taxes.
You can't have both, man.
If you're going to keep spending money like drunken sailors, property taxes are going
to have to go up to fund this stuff.
And it's just total ridiculous because everybody's complaining about property taxes, but then
they don't want to cut spending.
It's the whole thing just because you can't have both, man, because what you're going
to do, if you keep spending money like this, you're going to bankrupt the city.
Have a nice night.
Thank you.
Commissioner Pradron, you're still on the board, but are you, did you have anything?
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
The next card I have to speak is Gabriel Kirkpatrick.
Hi, if you'll give us your name, your time will begin.
Hi, my name is Gabriel Kirkpatrick.
Just want to say that I'm in support of this for a number of reasons.
I think it's long overdue.
Denton is growing rapidly.
One thing that I don't think we've done a good enough job of is how we're doing with
our downtown area.
I love the idea of having green spaces, of having parks, of connecting and having walkable
areas between the universities and the downtown sectors.
Long overdue.
One thing I didn't hear, and forgive me, I may have, when I read through is the water
reuse.
That's one concern I have.
When, you know, as we're building these things out in green spaces and things of that nature,
obviously we're in a very hot and dry climate, you know, just kind of what are the plans
for water reuse with a lot of this going on?
But in short, these plans are long overdue for this city, I think.
They may not be perfect, but it's something that we need to engage into and especially
that we're going to be supporting music and arts.
Some of the amphitheater ideas I think are long overdue as well.
I've used that term quite a bit.
I just think that we are finally focusing on something here that is the heart of the
city that everybody wants to come to Denton for and we need to be focusing on those things.
So I'm heavily supportive of, but I do have that question about water reuse and we'll
follow up with the city or however that works properly, just trying to get a feel of how
are we reclaiming water when we're building new structures and when we're retrofitting
areas.
So that's about my only question on it.
But I think it's great and I applaud the city for the work they did.
To Desiree's point too though, the demographic on who was reached out to is always interesting
to me too.
How you did that, who you got in touch with.
I know that's a very difficult thing, getting people to step up and actually fill out a
survey or to give their voice.
But yeah, I'm very much supportive.
So thank you and thank you for your time.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Cameron or Zach, can I ask a question with regard to what Mr. Kirkpatrick brought up?
Did we talk about water reclamation at all?
Not specifically.
We did talk about sort of building sustainability and thinking about the ways that we can make
sure that the plan is meeting and exceeding building codes in all of the areas from the
public realm improvements and so on.
That is a very interesting idea.
I think it's something that could be examined probably further.
It would probably be something that would be incorporated into design guidelines, which
would be one of the first implementation steps of the plan.
So just to make sure that that's clear, the adoption of this plan does not set any of
those zoning regulations or design guidelines in place.
That would be a further process that would actually have to continue from this in order
to actually create the actual regulation around those elements.
Okay.
Thank you.
Appreciate your thoughts on that.
Oh, sorry, Gary.
I didn't see you.
Good evening.
Gary Pack and Parks and Recreation.
One thing, and I don't have the specifics yet, but water utilities is working on a reclaimed
water process in a master plan so we can identify where we can put that reclaimed water and
use it for irrigation, not necessarily capturing water off of roofs of buildings, but reusing
water in a reclaimed fashion, which is not using potable water.
Okay.
Awesome.
That's good to know.
Thank you for sharing with us.
Okay.
Our next card I have to speak is Neil Durantz.
Hello there.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you.
Good evening, Neil Durantz.
Thank you.
My office is at 1108 North Locust, just right up the way inside the plan.
I hadn't heard a lot about this or any of the events, but I got a letter last week that
this was coming up.
And since I only have four minutes and don't see a timer, I assume I get about 45 minutes.
Okay.
Maybe not.
But I can't go over in four minutes 70 pages worth of document.
Let me start out by saying this has got to be the most colorful report I've ever seen.
It's very pretty.
There's lots of really pretty pictures in this at all.
This is also the third, fifth, or eighth, I can't remember, downtown plan that I've
seen this kind of this city go through.
The last one I think cost us about $250,000 or something like that.
And we got flower pots around the square.
I'm not sure how that works out.
The problem that we have in these types of plans is that we haven't learned about city
planning.
And when we go out to the people, that's a great thing to do.
We do want to be responsive to the public, but the fundamental city planning has not
been completed.
This report is stocked full of generalities about promotion and how things need to look
good and people need to enjoy themselves more.
They talked about walkability, they talk about efficiency of space, they talk about entertainment
venues, all of which we've covered about four or five times in the last 30 years.
They also talk about a vision statement.
We're not talking reality here folks, we're talking dreams.
We need to be addressing the real problems of this town and the pleasant plan does not
do that.
Now, I can't review all 70 pages, but let me take one example.
We've been talking about walkability around here ever since I got here in 1964, okay?
Because in '64 the problem was people bringing horses to the square.
That makes walkability a problem if you've ever been buying a horse for very long.
And so there was lots of things.
We've been talking about that for 30 years.
Nobody's looked at it, does anybody remember the German models?
The German models talk about efficiency of space and walkability and they've been the
best ones followed practically around the world by now for those people who really want
to plan.
That's just one area it's not addressed.
There's nothing about parking.
Parking has been the perennial problem about the square.
We would like to bring people down to it, but where are they going to park?
And as the other speaker just mentioned, you know it gets hot, you know how we are in Texas.
You know we get in the car and drive 40 feet to go see our neighbors, you know.
So I think that doesn't really face the real idea of that.
The fundamental problem has been that there is no determination of economic models that
will support or link with the results of city planning, okay?
You following me?
Because that means that we have to side the model.
The speaker himself said, and very nice guy, I like him a lot, he said that we have to
get private sector involvement.
I don't know about y'all, but have you ever gone into a businessman and said, by the way,
we were going to pass a zoning requirement that said you're going to have to invest another
$40,000 in your business or in your building or wherever to get past our planning and zoning
committee.
That doesn't go over real well and then you're talked about being anti-business.
Of course I have 28 seconds.
Enfield south of the square has been a perennial problem.
The same collides are down there that have always been down there and we don't hear how
that's going to be addressed on Enfield problem.
And we've got a hole in the square that I think, y'all know these things, I'm not telling
you anything you don't know.
We need to address those particular problems, but again it is not done with an economic
model that addresses the city planning issues.
And until that happens, I know my time has expired, I'll conclude, until we do that in
a realistic ways, then we've just made another pretty report and it will go back on the shelf
with the last one in the last three or four or five that we've seen about our downtown
area.
Oh, by the way, entertainment venue for what they were talking about with theaters and
everything, I think we got one, it's called Campus Theater.
And oh, by the way, if you look in the little pictures, if you put a beer garden in over
there on the Civic Center Park or the Quaker Town Park without talking to the arts and
jazz and it's where the one o'clock lab band's going to be performing the next year, I think
you've got a problem on your hands.
So we need to think of these things in realistic terms and address problems.
The first one starts with the economics of this city and that's a tough one.
Now, I've always offered my help, they don't ask me anymore, that's fine.
But that's your job.
So thank you all, I look for your time and like I said, I look forward to hearing from
all of you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dernitz.
I think I will just say, if you do have time to read the rest of that report, that was
a very high level that we got there from Zach, but there are things in the plan, I know with
regard to parking, there are things in the plan with regard to economically how we achieve
some of these goals.
So there's a lot more than the high level that we saw in that few minutes of that presentation.
So if you do have the time, I would encourage you to read all of it.
I do have a card here from Elizabeth Spoonce, I don't know if it's this item that you want
to speak on, okay, very good.
Hello.
Hi, how are you?
My husband and I were looking over the plan and noticed that they have decided to reallocate
the land that the pool is taking, the community pool, and the senior center.
Am I correct on that?
Yes.
And so those are resources for the community that are widely used.
And as a senior citizen here in Denton, been in Denton most of my life, I think that's
one of the things that when you start reallocating things, reallocating land and resources, you
need to have a backup plan for where is the new senior center going to be?
And where is the new community pool going to be?
Because you just can't wipe out these resources for the community that are widely used.
And for every senior citizen sitting in this room, if you have not been to the senior center,
you're missing something really absolutely wonderful that this city offers senior citizens.
And I just think that, you know, this is great to want to do improvements.
I do think financially this is going to be huge.
I would love to see this, you all, take a look at some of the things that you could
do in steps.
And I know there's phases, but, like, why can downtown, just the square that you've
already invested a lot in with the walkways and the planters and all that, why can you
not just go ahead and create some great signage for all the businesses that are there that
give some uniformity to the downtown square and not have it look so hodgepodge and get
some things going that would make Denton way more attractive without having to spend millions
of dollars and with reducing resources that already exist.
In terms of the Quaker Town Park, I think that the gentleman spoke about Jazz Fest,
that's a huge draw to our city, huge, huge draw.
I live way up by T.W.U. and I'm telling you, people park and walk for miles to get to Jazz
Fest, and so, you know, reallocating land and taking things away and not looking at
how we're utilizing that, that needs to be looked at really strongly because it's already
a strong asset for this city.
And I am just about out of time and out of topics.
So thank you very much for your time, I appreciate it.
>> Thank you.
>> And I guess just, yeah, come on down, Gary.
>> Gary back and Director of Parks and Recreation.
November 2023, residents voted and approved a 40 plus million dollar rebuilding of a senior
center.
So that will not be removed until that is done.
That is scoped to be done in the next couple of years.
So that is moving forward.
Our aquatics master plan was approved and adopted by council earlier this year to outline
future improvements of aquatics.
If this plan would move forward and that facility would remove from the park, there would be
other pool facilities in the city to accommodate that.
In regards to arts and jazz, we did meet with all, most if not all of the event planners
that take place in Quaker Town to make sure they were involved and provided feedback,
especially arts and jazz, and we met with them twice.
>> Great.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, and I'll just add to that.
We have to look at it like this plan that we're discussing tonight is a vision.
It's a vision for this downtown area to make it better.
Not to take away, not to do without the things that we're enjoying.
It's to make it better and improve upon what we already have.
That's what this is, is a vision.
Commissioner Pruitt.
>> Thank you, Chair.
Question for Zach, I believe.
There have been a few comments on sort of the sticker shock of some of the things in
this plan and what that means to the city.
I wonder if you could just give us a general feeling on what types of development typically
receive more tax dollars from property tax than it costs to support them and the infrastructure
in front of that property versus what types of development the city spends more to maintain
than it receives in property tax from that property.
>> Now, I want to say that this is definitely something that can change a little bit from
city to city, but typically commercial and mixed use development is a sort of net positive
that actually pays in more taxes than it receives in services.
Typically it can vary quite a bit depending on the age of buildings and different things
like that, of course.
We want to make sure that you caveat that, but typically those larger scale developments
do have a higher tax rate because there's no homesteading in some of those things when
you look at a per square foot development ratio.
>> Thank you.
>> Yep.
>> Thank you.
Thanks again, Zach.
The next card I have is Jody Ismert.
>> Jody Ismert, 819 Anna Street, and I just want to, I'm speaking out in support of the
downtown plan.
I think it's a good plan.
I like the vision.
I mostly wanted to also mention, I haven't looked at all the details yet, but walkability
also, I notice that there is an emphasis on the east side going through the neighborhoods
there, but nothing on the west side, like near Bolivar, where there's a lot of walkers
and cyclists, so I kind of wanted to emphasize perhaps to also include that section as well
for walkability and cycling as well.
I also, as far as the civic center park, I have to say, and I realize it's a vision,
but I also want to say I want to make sure that I really like the pool there.
I think it's nice to have a neighborhood pool in the center of the city for people to use,
especially with such density, and so I'm sad to see that that might actually be going away
perhaps.
And I'd also like to say that I didn't quite see information on what's happening with the
neighborhoods.
I live north of the square, and I'm actually looking into historic status, because my house
was built in 1940.
One of the things I've always wanted downtown to do was to incorporate us as far as make
the roads nicer, make the sidewalks nice, have the cute little acorn lights going through
the neighborhoods, maybe without maybe dark sky friendly, but instead we kind of got the
same lights that are on Carol and things of that nature, so it doesn't really incorporate
us into the downtown, but I would like us to be incorporated into the downtown, but
not necessarily as part of development, but as part of, as a neighborhood, as R2 as we
exist, but understood that we are, we should benefit in ways that enhance our neighborhood,
like with walkability and with lights at night, because it's very dark.
We still, you know, we still receive a lot of downtown traffic with people walking, but
it's very, very dark on our roads at night and things of that nature, so that's kind
of what I wanted to add, just for the cyclists and the walkers that live on that side, perhaps
you all could consider incorporating some more walkability there, some crosswalks and
things of that nature, and that's really it.
I like the plan though.
I mean, it's interesting.
It's good vision.
So thank you.
Thanks, Jody.
Yeah, and I think Zach's going to add something, because I do believe that the street you're
talking about is incorporated in the footprint of this plan.
Yeah, you've actually got a kid on something I think that's really key.
I think what we heard in terms of the neighborhoods to the north is that we really want to not
disturb them with an extreme amount of development, but that the public realm improvements, the
sidewalks, et cetera, are something that's really, really important.
So the chill streets that are laid out are priorities in terms of areas where we want
to make sure that we're seeing investment early on in order to create those networks
of paths between the universities and the square and so on, but the design guidelines
and the sort of elements in terms of the width of the sidewalks, the plantings, those sorts
of things would actually be accommodated throughout downtown.
There are slight changes in them within the historic sort of square component versus the
outside of the neighborhoods, but it is absolutely definitely foreseen that those types of improvements
while again, hopefully not disturbing the development character of those areas would
be something that would happen.
Thank you very much.
Next card I have is Christine Bray.
Hi.
All right, hello, everyone.
I see a lot to love about this plan.
I really like so many elements of it.
The walkability, as other speakers mentioned.
If folks think people don't walk, I would encourage you to sit over by Midway Mart and
just see how many people cross back and forth on Oak crossing Carroll, which is a dangerous
intersection.
There's been quite a few collisions there, injuries, but a lot of people walk that and
crossing back and forth between that more UNT area, the historic Oak Hickory area and
downtown I think that's an area that needs a lot of attention because people are crossing
there constantly, but it is risky.
I also like that it continues the kind of historic downtown development trajectory of
mixed use of providing things for the public, right?
That's what downtown Denton was built as and I appreciate that this acknowledges that,
preserves the historic character of downtown and is talking about maintaining ownership
opportunities and adding affordable housing.
I also like the transit emphasis, huge bus person.
I think that there is so much better that we could be doing to serve our downtown area
with public transit.
Mitigating the urban heat island effect, great.
We need more trees.
It should be more comfortable to walk around downtown.
Raised artistic crosswalks, I had pitched that years ago on traffic safety.
I'm glad to see it come back.
Turning the former mini mall into something, I'm excited about that idea.
Increasing public art.
I do share the concerns about moving the senior center and the pool kind of out of our downtown
walkable amenity rich area.
I think that we should be keeping things where they are accessible to folks.
I also have concerns about the new city hall plan being included in that.
I was on bond committee.
We had rejected that.
I wish that maybe there had been some reconsideration of that, but overall, I love this plan.
It's got so many exciting ideas in it and I really hope to see it move forward.
Thank you.
Our next card I have is Jennifer Lane.
I agree with pretty much said I just wanted to underscore that the Civic Center Pool is
designed by O'Neill Ford, so it should be kept because of its historic significance.
It's interesting, you know, just as you see parks that are designed by famous architects,
this swimming pool as part of Quaker Town Park was designed by O'Neill Ford.
And so it's an important item for the local people to use, but also because of its incredibly
beautiful design.
So I would recommend that that be kept in there.
And then I'm just curious about one of the designs.
Maybe someone can speak to it.
The legend here, I'm trying to understand the gray areas that are on either side of
downtown.
I don't think they're equivalent because the south side isn't residential, but the north
side is.
So I was just sort of wondering what that was about.
I don't know if anybody can address it.
I understand the legend pretty well, except the gray areas, I'm not sure what those mean.
Just the areas outside of downtown.
So they're just kind of whatever isn't being discussed as opposed to...
Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly right.
Awesome.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I don't have any other cards in front of me, but this is a public hearing.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item?
Okay.
Seeing none, I will go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion
or a motion.
Commissioner Villareal.
Thank you, Chair.
I have a couple of questions for staff.
I know a lot's been made about the pole removal.
How key to the plan's vision is the removal of the pole, would you say?
I'll probably let Gary come speak to this as well, but as Gary was saying, there has
already been direction from council about that issue.
And so our plan built on that direction, and the same is true for the senior center.
So I would assume that those are issues that could be reopened potentially, however they
are indeed things that the council has already given direction on.
Gotcha.
So kind of outside of our scope here.
That's exactly right.
So second question, I know we spoke about the inclusion of the Southeast Denton neighborhood
plan and how there were conversations with the team there.
And I have also heard that the lines aren't set in stone.
I just want to make sure that there's no, that perhaps we could set some of the lines
in stone in terms of the boundary between downtown Denton and the Southeast neighborhood,
Southeast Denton neighborhood, since that is a major point of concern.
Right.
So the way that we actually approached that in the process, in our early steps, we did
not show a boundary at all when we were talking about downtown.
We let people self-define where they were.
Similarly with the Southeast Denton group, they actually did a public engagement activity
where they asked people to draw a line around what they thought of as Southeast Denton.
So the ultimate boundaries that we decided on for the two studies were based on the input
from the Southeast community.
However, we of course know that there are influences and we wanted to also make sure
that the Southeast community was being really represented in the economic opportunities
and other opportunities that come from downtown as well.
So we really tried to make sure that we were working closely together in order to really
think about the ways that the plans are complimentary to each other.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Gary, did you have anything to add while commissioner Villarreal still has the floor here?
Gary Pack and director of Parks and Recreation, could you repeat your question, please?
Sure, the first question was about the removal of the pool.
I know it sounds like city council already voted to do that.
Yeah, no, that hasn't specifically happened.
So we're at a point where we either have to make infrastructure improvements to that facility
long-term or come up with another plan.
We have, we're trying to move our infrastructure from aquatics to regional-based concept.
As the city continues to grow, we have really two facilities in a spray ground.
Aquatics is very costly.
We're trying to balance operational expenses while we grow and improve as a parks recreation
department.
So we're trying to figure out the best process moving forward in regards to regional facilities
as best we can.
As we are a smaller community, we're more community-based.
If you look at where our rec centers are located, they're really tight within the city's kind
of the loop, but the city's growing outside of the loop.
So we're trying to look and try to move towards that direction of regional-based.
At some point in time, we're going to have to make a decision whether to reinvest in
the pool in Quaker Town, which we could do, or the plan as it's proposed right now turns
it into a spray ground.
So there's still an aquatic component there, which is less from an operational standpoint.
We don't have to have staff there, just regular maintenance.
We don't have to have lifeguards as a typical pool would have.
So there would be another facility that would be built within the city if that ever came
offline.
Gotcha.
And has there been any consideration given to perhaps the historical nature of the pool?
That's the one thing that we need to look at.
No, I think the original structure was an O'Neill Ford one, and this was replaced at
some point in time.
I'll let the historical ...
Hi, Karen Robertson, also Historic Preservation Officer.
So the pool was designed as part of the original O'Neill Ford complex.
A large overhaul and maintenance was done to it in 1993, and within the last two years,
there has been maintenance of new concrete, a new pergola being put up.
So there is been that in-kind replacement, but it has seen maintenance over the years.
Thank you.
So do we have a percentage of how much is the original pool or ...?
I can give you approximate based off the plans that I've seen.
I would say less than 40% of it is the original pool.
Gotcha.
But just ... She's a lot taller than me.
Just a reminder, again, this is a visionary plan.
We still have a lot of steps to go through in regards to adoption for city council consideration
and moving forward.
Gotcha.
And just so it's asked on the senior center, I know we voted for that last year.
Was the move included in the bond vote or is that just consideration that y'all are
giving?
Yeah.
So the feedback that we've been getting as the senior center continues to grow and expand,
we have two senior centers.
We have one in Quaker Town and one at Fredmore Park.
We've identified two locations that they could possibly go to.
We have not started the process to get community feedback in regards to the location, but early
on the discussion was that it's probably not going to happen where it's at right now.
Based on the size of the park, the needs of the facility, the parking is an issue for
our seniors at our facility, and that was during our parks master plan process.
That was the number one feedback component that was received from the users of that facility
was parking is an issue, especially in the summertime when there's a lot going on.
And just approximately, do you know if there's a lot of folks who walk from their home to
the senior center?
I don't have that number.
We did get feedback about public transportation, so that is definitely something that we'd
consider to make sure that we have that component.
Awesome.
Thank you.
You bet.
Thanks, Gary.
Come on up.
Sure.
Of course.
Thank you so much.
One thing I did want to add in addition to the pool is that the design does remain the
same though, so that placement of the pool, that sunbathing embankment that kind of faces
the pool, that all still remains intact.
So I did just want to clarify that.
Thank you very much.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you everyone who's come out to speak and share your thoughts.
It really helps us, I think this gives us a good platform from which to go forth.
I will say personally, I tend to not be excited about losing the pool either.
They are really expensive, however.
What I see is that there's some new opportunities in front of us, and there's some old infrastructure
that would need serious rehabilitation to keep, and it's sort of a race between how
soon can we make it desirable and financially feasible to build more housing in our downtown
area in order to get more usage out of these facilities versus when that stuff starts to
age out, what's the desire?
Just to give you an impression, the entire downtown study area, and I'm sure Zach will
correct me if I'm wrong, but when I did this calculation several months ago, it had an
average residential density in the entire 700-something acres of 2.78 homes per acre.
So that's significantly even less than the density of a typical single-family subdivision.
We've got a lot of room to grow.
So I'm excited to see the future.
I think the 1,500 homes is a thing that I hope we can surpass much earlier than Zach's
team projects, and I hope that it gives us the tax revenue and the activity down there
to be able to grow more small businesses, to be able to see more usage out of our loved
facilities, and to be able to see some new ones come as well.
Thank you.
Commissioner Thacker.
Thank you, Chair.
I have two questions, the first one is for Parks and the other ones I can direct towards
Cameron or Sean.
I was also on the Bond Committee.
I'm trying to recall, I thought that this senior center that we had inevitably decided
on or that we had considered had an aquatic element to it.
Am I wrong on that?
I know the one that you guys initially proposed was way, way out of budget, but I think when
we reconsidered that there was an aquatic element to that one.
There was some discussions, until we get through the design process, we're not sure if that
would be feasible from a financial standpoint.
That is a desire, but wants desires and trying to balance all that's the challenge with
the finances.
Okay.
Thank you.
I just couldn't recall.
Yes, ma'am.
And then, Cameron or Sean, maybe you guys can speak to this.
I know that you guys said you were working with a couple of economic developers in terms
of, you know, with the whole plan kind of for consult.
Is there any been, has there been any consideration of possibly developing, I know we're really
big on our art and really big on our murals, but the potential of some type of corporate
sponsor via, you know, our style.
So I'm thinking the likes of like downtown Shreveport where Tabasco sponsored a giant
wall in which they painted this beautiful mural that, you know, gave an homage to downtown
Shreveport, but it was, it was still Tabasco and something that kind of incorporates who
we are as a city, but also allows for us to offset some of these costs.
I'm, you know, that poor subway up there didn't have a chance, man, but you know, in terms
of making it something that's our own, but something that incorporates Coca-Cola or something
that incorporates in our own light, has any of that been considered?
Yeah, so the plan does recommend working through a public art plan and really expanding on
the use of public art.
The murals that are already downtown have really been something again that people love
and are well received thinking about the ways that can move that forward within both the
strategies around park improvements, as well as thinking in a broader way about longer
term funding sources, it is more and more common that there is a philanthropic element
to that, whether that is naming rights in some cases with parks or other things like
that, that would go into that.
And we do, I think, mention as a next step to look into, you know, the feasibility of
something like a park conservancy or something like that, that would be able to be a kind
of fiscal sponsor for those sorts of elements to be able to move forward now.
Thank you.
Commissioner Cole.
Thank you, Chair.
You guys have done such a great job, y'all work so hard, and this is another one you
guys just knocked out of the park, and I mean, y'all are amazing, your outreach is incredible,
and I just want to thank you for all your hard work.
Thank you.
Okay, we've got the floor open for discussion or a motion.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Move approval with the full understanding that this is a vision, not a set plan, and
I'm hopeful that the city will take a lot of the consideration from the constituents
today into mind.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
Okay, we've got a first and a second for approval, any other discussion?
Okay, I'll just thank everyone for coming out to speak today and share your thoughts.
Thanks to the Zach, your team, Cameron, Sean, I mean, you were everywhere all the time it
seemed this past year, really, really great work on this.
The advisory committee that you had, I know, worked hard, the citizen involvement was fantastic,
so super, super fun to read through and see this coming to this day, it's really great,
I think it's a great vision to make our downtown even better, yes, please, go ahead, Zach.
We realized late that this was not in our acknowledgement, so it will be in the final
version, but I did also want to mention the logo and the look of the plan was actually
designed by a Denton artist, Jude Landry, so I wanted to make sure his name got mentioned
today as well.
That's awesome.
Thank you for doing that.
I had forgotten about that, yes.
So with that, we'll go ahead, if there's no other discussion, go ahead and vote on the
board, please.
That motion will carry 6-0.
That will move us to our next public hearing item for tonight, that's 5D ASUP 23000.
I'll go ahead and open the public hearing, and while Sean's getting ready for presentation,
we'll just pause slightly because I think we're going to have some people heading out
the door.
All right.
Thank you, Chair and members of the commission, Sean Jacobson, Associate Planner, I'm here
to present ASUP 230001, the landmark at Locust project.
This is a request for an amendment to a specific use permit to allow for plan changes to an
already approved multifamily development project.
So just to clarify, we do, as many of you all know, have an approved specific use permit
for a 660-unit multifamily project on this site, and this amendment is not related to
the use which is already approved, but simply to the design of the project.
It's some changes that went a little bit beyond what could be administratively approved.
The purpose here is to expand the remaining developable area adjacent to the proposed
multifamily, so to leave a larger remaining area for development next to the multifamily,
and that's proposed to be done by converting some of the street extensions into narrower
drive aisles and shifting that drive aisle to the east.
So this is located at the corner of Loop 288 and North Locust Street.
It's currently zoned, so we're in corridor which permits the use, and as stated, the
use has been approved already.
The future land use lines up with what's requested.
This request would make it easier, help facilitate the development of mixed use at this intersection,
which is what the future land use anticipates.
So staff is recommending approval of this amendment.
As I said, the background here, this was approved, 660 units, 24 buildings.
The owner and the developer, after the approval, realized, came to us and said, we don't believe
we have enough space in the remainder area in order to put in retail site pads, and the
changes that would be needed to widen that area went beyond what staff could administratively
approve and therefore required, coming back to the process to amend the SUP, and so therefore
we are before you to talk to those changes which primarily relate to expanding that area.
So the key change requested is, initially, we had extensions of streets, AIM and Beale,
into the site at a neighborhood street width.
Those would be converted over into private streets, which would, of course, be the maintenance
responsibility would then go to the private owner, but they would be within public access
easement.
So the ability to access the site for the public would remain exactly the same, however,
the narrowing by about six feet there creates some expanded space for those adjacent non,
that remaining area, to develop in a non-residential way under the SC Zoning District.
In addition, that north-south drive aisle would be shifted about 50 feet to the east,
again, in order to expand that remaining area.
Along with that, then, because of the reduction in the developable area for the multifamily
project, then we had internal site and landscape adjustments.
Too many to note, many primarily small ones, just moving things around in order to fit
into the smaller space.
We also did have some entry and access design changes.
So in working through this a second time with our transportation folks, there were some
changes they recommended to the entry and exit drives.
Those were carried out.
You also see there's not that long extension, the north end, knowing, well, actually not
knowing exactly how TxDOT's expansion will go there, it made sense to provide some greater
flexibility about where that future potential connection would be, rather than having them
stick a long section of pavement up there.
Overall, you can see the result was about a 3.28 acre increase in the remainder area,
which was the goal.
Additional site impacts, so as I said, the right-of-way area is reduced, so we're not
dedicating those extensions as right-of-way.
A number of units and buildings on the site was reduced, so it's about 36 less multi-family
units, one less building.
Landscape area decreased somewhat, but the percentage actually increased overall.
Tree canopy increased in both Praia, usable open space was also able to be increased.
We did have an increase in number of building design styles, just because they needed more
options in order to fit the buildings into the space they had.
The buffers adjacent to the single-family residential area to the west were left unchanged.
So overall, this is consistent with the development code and our approval criteria for the specific
use permit.
It aligns with our 2040 comprehensive plan goals, which encourage development of mixed
use at key intersections, so providing a larger area for those potential commercial properties
to develop next to the multi-family, seeing that multi-family has the opportunity to support
that future commercial, which is in line with the goals of our comprehensive plan.
It's also consistent with the suburban corridor zoning district, which is designed to allow
both commercial and multi-family together.
The amended specific use permit continues to include measures to mitigate any substantial
negative impacts on surrounding property.
We're still recommending the traffic signal constructed by the developer at Beale and
Locust.
We'll still have buffer areas between the neighboring residential and the proposed multi-family
and potential future commercial area.
Still providing a trail and the other, essentially all of the mitigating elements in the original
plan are left unchanged.
Utilities and infrastructure would be extended and/or upgraded to serve the subject property.
We did do the standard public outreach.
We did receive seven responses in opposition.
The applicant also held a neighborhood meeting and the applicant is here and will be able
to speak more to what they heard from the neighbors at that time.
So what that staff is recommending approval of the SEP amendment with the following conditions,
which would repeal and replace the conditions from the original SEP and essentially apply
the, what you see in the site landscape and building plans that would be attached to the
ordinance.
So with that, that is my presentation.
Happy to answer any questions you all may have.
Thank you very much, Sean.
Commissioner Thacker.
Thank you, Chair.
I noted that most of the addresses of the opposition were kind of concentrated in one
area.
Is there like one particular, is there something particular about the development that would
suggest why that particular cluster more than any kind of has the opposition?
I'm not sure that I could say that there is, because I would have said the one point where
there's kind of a connection to the existing neighborhood, and it's actually very specifically
this plan was designed to not allow vehicles to travel from this development into the neighboring
area, and I really don't see a cluster around that one point where it connects.
So it's hard for me to say what that reasoning might be.
Okay.
Any other questions for Sean?
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We may have more later.
Absolutely.
And as I said, the applicant is here.
Yeah.
I do have a card here from Brian Bridgewater.
I don't know if you have a presentation or if you just want to answer some questions.
So I'll let you come up here and tell us.
Hi.
Hi, Ellen.
I'm the civil engineer, represent the multi-family developer, so I've been working on this for
as long as Sean has.
Really Sean did a fantastic job.
We've been working with him diligently, dotting all of our I's, crossing all of our T's.
It sounds like there was one little item with the pork chop at the AIM locus, so we just,
that layer got turned on, so we'll delete that, but we've been working heavily with
planning and engineering, so we've submitted our engineering plans, but in short, you know,
we figured since we're reducing units, you know, we didn't do a neighborhood outreach
because we're providing more amenities, but the fundamental SUP, what got approved before,
it's fundamentally the same, but just some reductions in units, so we didn't expect too
much pushback on that, so.
Yeah.
Your public outreach was for the original SUP, right?
You didn't do it for these changes.
Yes, ma'am, on the original, we had, I believe, two neighborhood meetings, we really helped
them understand what the development was about, so we spent a lot of time and effort in that.
Okay.
Sean, did you have something to add or?
No, actually, you guys did hold a follow-up meeting.
Oh, we did?
Okay.
A lot of time has passed on this project.
Okay, my apologies.
You apparently were not at that meeting.
You know what, I don't remember what I did last night, so.
Very good.
Okay.
Other than that, I'm here, also a representative from Landmark is here.
He's their local construction manager, so he's been with Landmark for a few years, so
the developer's here as well if you have any questions for either of us.
I know I had a question with regard to that AEM intersection, so it's working now to where
we just, it's all directions, in and out, I mean, yes.
So on the west side of Locust, you're correct.
It's a full access drive there.
We have gone back and forth with the city and TextDOT, I know the city has transitioned
staff a couple of times on us through this, TextDOT's been looking at the loop improvement,
so we've tried to put everything there, we've done all sorts of analysis, but I think the
consensus, so the consensus from city staff and TextDOT was just to remove the pork chop,
you know, that would restrict access and make it a full access, but, you know, we are still
proposing the signalized intersection down at Locust and Beale.
Okay, so you talk about the AEM drive on the west side, which is not your development,
so on your development side.
Correct.
So that traffic is always on that, correct?
Yeah, that'll be a full access point, so we'll match up across Locust with AEM and we'll
have full access and there's been discussions about the city taking over that TextDOT, I'm
not privy to all that, but I think there's so many moving parts there, you know, we're
here to accommodate, but it sounded like the safest route was just to make it a full access
and eventually as the city and/or TextDOT figures out what they want to do there, they'll
make modifications accordingly, but that's...
Yeah, traffic would go at Beale.
Yes, ma'am.
Would that be prior to, or at the same time of development?
Do you know?
Yes, that would be with phase one of the development, so right now we are working on construction
drawings for the southern portion of the development, so this is actually a two-phase development,
so the signal as well as the majority of the, what I'll call the spline road that's along
the west side, the multifamily and surrounds the commercial tracks, that's gonna go in
as well.
So we're putting the bulk of the infrastructure in with phase one.
And then that, you're not anticipating an issue with AEM Drive being so close to that
traffic light and how that's gonna work at times?
It's, I mean, it's not ideal.
It's one of those circumstances when the development went in on the west side, that's really what
constrained us.
We looked at different options since there's no frontage road along the loop that we're
allowed to connect to and we can't get down to Hercules, and the residents, they were
real vocal about not having access.
Absolutely, yeah.
It was really the only solution that was left.
Okay, yeah.
Not ideal, I guess, but yeah.
Okay.
Commissioner Villarreal, thank you for answering my question.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for that answer.
This may be a question for the developer.
Were you at that meeting with the dozen community members attended?
I wasn't.
We had a consultant there.
I'm vice president of construction.
I'm usually here for more nuts and bolts.
Okay.
And I was there for, I know at least one of them, sounds like I missed one, but we had
a consultant, Trey Jacobson, did a fantastic job, did a presentation.
He also presented to PNZ and council the same presentation, but we talked with the residents,
helped them really understand.
We helped them understand what the previous zoning was and helped, and it was basically
almost 36 acres of full commercial, so we tried to help them understand what that impact
would be versus doing kind of a mixed use development and how that would actually benefit
traffic.
So multifamily is controversial always, but we tried to help them understand what could
be done and how this was arguably a better product.
Sure.
And do we have, do y'all have anyone you can reach out to to get some insight about the
most recent?
I'm actually going to help you with that right now.
There was an email that was shared with us that came from Trey Jacobson's, who they're
talking about, who was at the meeting, and he had sent it to Sean when Sean asked how
that meeting went, and Mr. Trey Jacobson said, "Everybody understands the need to move the
boundaries and is happy the project is essentially staying the same, everyone happy."
So that was his feedback from that latest meeting with regard to these changes.
Gotcha.
And do you know if they had a chance to reach out to the folks who sent letters of opposition
in?
We have not done that.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Pruitt.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm not sure who is the better answerer of this, but you made the mistake of bringing
a wide team.
I never turn down the opportunity to ask someone who understands construction math and how
these sites are laid out.
Understand the current application, that's great, and this is not directed toward exactly
what you're going to build in the remainder of the site at all.
But if it was the desire of the city to see these types of multifamily adjacent commercial
projects to be built in a way where they would create the building such that they could be
economically successful with frontage to this freeway and that sort of thing, but also have
an inviting entrance from the adjacent multifamily so that it doesn't look like a blank wall,
what have you seen create a situation where that's desirable?
Is there anything we do that makes that hard, in other words?
No, I don't think so, and I think a lot of that comes from our architecture.
Sir, can you come to the mic?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
It's a good question.
I think our architect comes in and understands the environment that we're in, and we try
to blend into that environment the best we can.
We've got several different architects, we're using Eichmeyer on this one.
He's a very solid architect, and I'm sure he's very familiar with the area, but the
projects we've got around the Metro projects right now, I don't think we have any of those
problems.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any other questions for the developer at this time, or the applicant at this time?
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
This is a public hearing.
I don't have any other cards in front of me, but is there anyone wishing to speak?
Yep, come on down.
Hi there.
Yes, you can bring that down.
I'm going to have to move this away.
If you'll state your name, your time.
Hi.
Yes.
Gail Sulek, North Lakes Neighborhood in Denton.
My only comment, I don't know the details of this particular project, but I do have
major concerns about not reaching back to the neighborhood and the people who opposed,
knowing why they opposed, and now to have an addendum to this project when the original
people who were reviewing it now have no idea that this addendum is going on.
So that's my concern.
I think that you need to go back to the people and find out why they opposed and how this
potentially could or could not impact their original comments.
That's all.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
This is a public hearing.
Is there anyone else wishing to speak?
Okay, seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor
for a motion or discussion.
I think what I'll just add to what this is confusing, and I know what it is to the public,
being that this is an already approved SUP that we had a public hearing for before, and
when you go back and watch it, there was significant public engagement then.
There were quite a few people who came out to speak then.
I re-watched the video.
Most were in support, even one saying, "This is the highest and best use of this land that
is right behind the neighborhood," and it is a very nice transition, honestly, for this
big piece of property to go from the subdivision to the multifamily to the commercial that
is eventually going to be on the corner.
I think this, unfortunately, just offers some confusion out there as to what this really
is.
For me, personally, what I see is pretty minor things to the original plan.
In work session, I asked Sean what were those key elements that were discussed the first
time around, and all of those key elements are intact.
Those are not being touched at all.
What I see here is changes being made so that that commercial property can get deeper, and
the reconfiguration of the original SUP, which is why it's before us today.
It's not a brand new request.
It's not new things that weren't discussed previously.
All of those key elements, again, that were for neighborhood protections are still there.
I'll offer those as my two cents, in my opinion.
Is there any other discussion that anyone wanted to offer or a motion?
Commissioner Cole?
I make a motion to approve.
Okay.
Commissioner Pruitt?
Second.
Okay.
We've got a first and a second for approval.
Is there any further discussion?
Commissioner Villarreal?
Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for coming here today and for the presentation.
I'm expecting this to pass, but I do have some concerns with the lack of insight to
that community meeting and with the lack of outreach to the folks who reached out for
the ASUP.
I know there was a lot of outreach during the SUP process in November.
I went back and watched the meeting, too.
I voted for the original SUP, but the lack of public engagement this time around trying
to figure out what those issues were, that's a concern to me.
Thank you.
Any other discussion?
Okay.
Let's go ahead and vote on the board, please.
That motion will carry 5-1.
That will take us to our planning and zoning matrix, and I will turn it over to Haley.
Good evening.
I don't believe we had any changes on the matrix.
Just to report on recent council actions that relate to P&Z items, as you all have probably
seen, short-term rentals has been postponed to September 24th.
We are doing additional outreach regarding that since there was a tie vote at council
to ensure that we meet all notice requirements, so that will be back as a public hearing on
September 24th.
The P&Z reconsideration process, that code amendment, did pass 4-3 at the last council
meeting, so that will be in the books for you all to utilize moving forward.
And then we did have one zoning change.
If you recall, the change from rural residential to light industrial on the south side of university
that was adjacent to the newly approved SUP for an equipment rental facility, that was
approved by council as well at their previous meeting, and those are the only updates I
have for you all.
Okay.
Haley, with regard to short-term rentals, I mean, that presentation is remaining the
same, correct?
Correct.
Okay.
No changes have been made since it was a tie vote.
Council procedures call for it to return on each subsequent agenda, but since the public
hearing has had such a long process, we did determine the safest course of action was
to re-notice for a public hearing and make sure everyone that could be affected by the
zoning change and the use changes in our residential districts would receive additional opportunity
to come out.
Which is why it was pushed out.
Okay.
Commissioner Thacker.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm sorry.
I just didn't hear you completely what you just said in regards to the owners.
Sure.
So we are in an effort to make sure everyone is noticed properly, re-noticing citywide
to all zoning districts that would have a short-term rental use allowed in that zoning
district.
So those notices will be going out for a new public hearing on the 24th, at which time hopefully
we have a full council to reach a non-tie vote on the item.
Right.
And what has been the outreach from some of those owners?
I know that I personally get airfuls and questions from owners asking, I mean, these are really
bright people, some of them who've served on council and served on P&Z before that are
trying to make sure that they understand if they are grandfathered, if they're not, if
it's based off of purchase, if it's based off of when they registered it.
Yes.
So Angie is the case manager on that, has spoken to countless people, anyone that reaches
out to her, she's happy to sit down and talk to them about it.
We did have a, following the first council meeting regarding this, we had a meeting with
the real estate community and any citizens, we opened it up to anyone that wanted to attend
and had several residents there as well.
So we've had multiple town hall events trying to get the word out.
So if anyone that you know of does have questions, feel free to send them our way and we're happy
to sit down and talk with them.
Yeah, that would be ideal.
Anything for the matrix?
I've got a couple of things.
This is probably not for the matrix, but maybe for as a staff item.
When we have things, things like we had tonight in this previously approved SUP and we have
a meeting, could we maybe link the video in the backup or if not that, at least mention
it?
It's super helpful, especially to be able to go back and rewatch that and that date sometimes
might get lost in the backup of when one can go access that.
So I don't know if that's something that can be done or how easily it could be done, but
I think it's super important on issues like this.
So anything I think that we've had a past public meeting that we're rehashing, if that
is not too much trouble for that video of that meeting to be linked in there, I think
that would be very helpful to any PNZs going forward.
We should easily be able to do that.
And then the other thing I had, and I'm not sure exactly date-wise when this would make
sense, but we had an awful lot of discussion with Gary tonight or he offered a lot of insight.
Could we maybe get an update to that aquatics plan and that senior center and whenever it's
appropriate?
Obviously they're in the throes of it is what it seems like, so down the road.
But I know it's been a bit, I think, since Gary has talked to us and given us an update.
Maybe the Parks Master Plan or Trails Master Plan was the last time we had Gary on PNZ.
I think that is right.
We can reach out and try to coordinate that with that.
That'd be great.
Thank you.
Commissioner Improved.
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, I just, especially since you asked about links to previous things, I really appreciate
the tabular list of the history that has helped me.
I also, I don't know if this was staffs doing or just Granicus had an upgrade, but I've
noticed recently that there's some sort of an automated transcript that is searchable
within the Granicus system.
So if you search for certain text, it will actually give you a portion of a video where
people said that.
So it's, I found that helpful recently.
So thank you if there's thanks due.
That is.
Thank you.
Okay, nothing else for the matrix?
Concluding items?
Okay.
With that, I'll go ahead and adjourn us at 8, 19 PM.
Thank you very much, everyone.