Nov 13, 2024 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2024-11-13 5:00 PM

November 13, 2024 Planning and Zoning Commission

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- Good afternoon and welcome to the city of Denton's planning and zoning commission meeting for Wednesday, November 13th, 2024. Thank you for your patience while we waited for our quorum, which we have now and I will call us to order at 5.19 p.m. First item on our work session agenda is citizen comment on consent agenda. Do we have anyone here for that? Okay, we'll move to clarification of tonight's agenda. The first being the minutes for the 25th and 23rd, 25th of September, 23rd October. Any questions, concerns? Okay, consent agenda. Any questions on the consent agenda? Okay, items for individual consideration. I'm gonna kind of move quickly through these, I think. 4A is an extension to December 11th. Is there any question there? Do you need a presentation in work session? Okay. Next item is 4B, ZCP 2004-0034. Mia, I think, yeah, I'll go ahead and let you give us a summary of that one since that is not. Yeah, anything typical. - No worries. - Appreciate you. I mean, I guess it is for Razor Ranch, but. - It's my new normal, yeah. - Yeah. - All right. Okay, Mia Hines, good evening chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, senior planner. This item is a zoning compliance plan for the Perdera at Razor Ranch. It's a proposed multifamily development on an eight acre property situated south of Panhandle, just 200 feet west of North Bonnie Bray Road. And staff is recommending approval of this item as it meets all of the criteria for approval for Razor. Just a little reminder, the Razor Ranch overlay district requires that site plans be reviewed and final approval be granted by the planning and zoning commission. That is why this item is coming to you this evening. And I do have a more detailed presentation to go over in the regular session. - And I know we had some updated documents sent, so I don't know if everyone had a chance to review those. But obviously, you'll be presenting those tonight. - Yeah, and just to cover, really the only change is that there are some additional plantings in the, within this landscape, I'm sorry, this parking row here. And then there's the transformer location DME referred to of these utilities as opposed to the one that was originally situated here. So very minor changes, not to the overall site. - Good, any questions from you? Okay, thank you very much. Our 4C item is like 4A, it is an extension request to a date certain of December 11th. Does anyone require to look at that in work session? Okay, that'll take us to our public hearings then. We'll get through those and get through questions. 5A is PD240003. Hi, Angie. - Thank you, good evening, Chair, members of the commission. Angie Manglaris, Development Review Manager. Give you a summary of PD240003, the reserves at Brush Creek. This is a proposed rezoning request from RR and R1 to a planned development district with a base zoning of R4. It is on approximately 15.44 acres of land situated northeast of US377 and Brush Creek Road. The purpose is to facilitate the development of a 42 lot single family residential neighborhood. It is consistent with the comprehensive plan, specifically the future land use plan, housing and population projections, and the preferred land preservation plan. Staff is recommending approval as it does comply with our criteria for approval. I have a more detailed presentation that I can give during regular meeting, but I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have now. - Great, questions for Angie? Angie, are we making the 42 homes part of this PD? 'Cause I didn't see that necessarily in these standards, but are we incorporating them, that development concept plan into this? - Yes, so as part of the plan development plan, the exhibits and the ordinance include the development standards, which are the written language, the development plan, which is the 42 lots and their general layout, as well as the landscape plan, which includes those buffers and areas of open space. So all of that is included as part of this PD, and they are required to substantially adhere to it. - Would it be possible that that number could go up, though, 'cause they don't have to adhere to that configuration, do they, necessarily? - The configuration could change slightly, but we really only allow for minor amendments, and an increase in homes is not contemplated as part of a minor amendment. That would be major and would have to come back to you all. - Okay, sounds good. Other questions right now? Okay, thank you very much. You're staying up here for the next one. 5B PDA 240002. - Yes, this is a overlay plan development amendment request. So the purpose here is to amend an existing plan development with a base zoning of MN on approximately 3.18 acres of land located just east of I-35 North, and approximately 1,000 feet south of West Windsor Drive, to facilitate the development of an indoor recreation facility. This one does have a little bit more history to it. There was a straight zoning change that was considered in 2020. It was approved with conditions, and that has translated to an overlay PD situation. This overlay PD did establish several land use restrictions, but did not adopt a concept plan. So that leaves some ambiguity in what constitutes an adjacent building, as called out in the current overlay plan development, and is not conducive for single building development. At the original meeting this was considered at, a site plan was shown with approximately seven pad sites, and the specification was that buildings adjacent to single family residential be restricted to professional and medical offices. So the purpose of this amendment is to remove unclear language in the original PD, as well as address concerns that the neighborhood had related to this specific use. It does retain original provisions within the initial overlay PD, including restricted land uses. Those stay the same, as well as limited access from Colonial Drive for emergency purposes only. It does comply with our criteria for approval. I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have now. There's a more detailed presentation for later this evening. - Angie, do you know the hours of operation of this proposed use? - I do not, but the applicant should be here this evening who could maybe speak to the more business side of this plan. - Okay. Any questions, anybody? - Thank you. - Thank you very much. Okay, our next public hearing is 5CZ240011. Julie is presenting that. Hello. - Good evening, Julie Wyatt. Let me pull in my presentation. See if I can find it. Here we go. Good evening, this is Z2411, the DISD transportation facility. Just a quick summary of the proposal. Denton ISD is requesting to rezone about 10 acres that they own from R6 to PF District. That's consistent with our standard practices for government-owned properties. This is to zone at that PF District. They are looking to relocate their transportation facility from its existing site just northwest of the Ryan High School campus to just kind of north of the Ryan High School campus. So from that yellow area to the blue. The proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan and our future land use goals. And we are recommending approval of the request. I will be happy to answer any questions and a representative will be attending tonight's meeting to answer questions. - Great. Questions for Julie? Julie, I was wondering if there's gas pumps on the current site. - Gas, oh, yes, yes. - Right, 'cause they have fuel on the site for the, okay, so those will be needing to be mitigated if they're using that current space for school expansion. Is that what I understand? - So, and these transportation facilities are pretty comprehensive. It has a secure location for the buses. It has offices. It has fueling. It has to be able to do some minor repairs. So they're pretty comprehensive for their buses. They are looking to repurpose that property to some fields right now. You may have noticed on the Denton ISD campuses that they are installing, I believe there's, on Ryan is going right here, large athletic indoor facilities. So they're looking to repurpose existing fields to these athletic facilities and finding other places on their campuses for those fields. In this instance, they are repurposing the transportation facility for that. And of course, they'll have to meet all regulations associated with it. - Okay. Questions? Yep. Commissioner Perdon. - Thank you, Julie. One of the comments that we got from a community member is security, which you said it would be a secure location. Can you speak if there would be a fence at the location? - Yes, so there's really two parts to the site, and this is a straight zoning, so it won't have a site plan associated with it, but they have submitted it, so I have some information. There is a secured gated area, which that's where the buses will be. Of course, they have drivers who have to drive to the facility every morning, so there's gonna be a portion outside of that gated area for the bus drivers to park their personal vehicles as they're driving the buses, and then the buses, the actual, those will be behind a fenced area. - Okay, thank you. - You bet. - Anything else for Julie on this one? Okay, thank you very much. - Thank you. - Our last public hearing on our agenda, staff is requesting that we continue to December 11th. They are gonna re-notice that we are gonna open the public hearing and leave it open, and then ask to continue it to December 11th. Any questions regarding that? Okay, all right, then let's get to our work session reports. The first one being 3A, PZ24197. Receive a report, hold a discussion regarding the Tree Mitigation Fund. And I'm not sure who is hosting that. There we go, hello. - Good evening, Chair and commission members. My name is Ziad Carrot, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation. And I'll pull up my... Here we go. In a previous Planning and Zoning meeting, it was asked to come back with some answers to some questions asked by the commission members regarding the Tree Mitigation Fund. The Tree Mitigation, as you know, is used by the Parks Department for a number of programs, tree planting, tree programs. And so what I've done in this presentation is just address your questions directly. We'll be here to address any other questions that may come up. I have some additional staff members here that can answer any specific questions that you have about programs or specific tree planting efforts related to urban forestry. So one question that was asked was, how often is the Tree Mitigation Fund paid into and payment is received into the fund when plotting fees are assessed? And so there's a standard process for that when fees are assessed throughout that process. And so it's, you know, as those fees come in, it goes straight into the Tree Mitigation Fund. And if you wanna ask me questions anytime, please, I'll stop whenever, or we can wait till the end. So the next question was, what can the funding be used for? It's very explicit in the code of ordinances, what those funds can be used for. Section 77.4 to be specific. And I have another slide here that's an excerpt from that code so that we can go through that in detail. What recent projects have been completed with this funding? So here's a list of projects that we've completed in the last several years with Tree Mitigation Funding. So most recently, we've utilized ground-based LIDAR within parks, city facilities, and rights of way, using, utilizing a contract that we have with a company called Greehill. So they've actually gone around with a Google Street View looking car with technology strapped to the top that goes and inventories trees for their condition, their type, their size within these areas so that they can help us gather data for informing our work process in terms of maintaining those trees. And so we're also working with them on establishing an overall city-wide, city-wide look at our tree canopy. And so we're able to use that technology in a number of different ways. So the Tree Mitigation Fund is used for those purposes as well. For specific tree planting that has been completed with this funding recently is annual Arbor Day Planting, which is the first Saturday of November. Our annual tree rate rebate program, we planted on Shady Oaks Drive, or we're preparing for our planting on Shady Oaks Drive, and that's upcoming in this fall/winter. There's a lot of steps that are involved with that 'cause every tree that we plant, we wanna make sure that it has adequate irrigation facilities that are connected to it. So if it's trees that are planted in the medians, we have to make sure that those medians are set up for irrigation prior to any tree planting. Hickory Creek was a recent project of medium plantings. Joe Skiles Park, we had a major renovation to the park recently and we utilized Tree Mitigation Fund for planting trees along the trail within that park. The same with Sequoia Park in the fall of 2023, same at South Lakes Park and North Lakes Dog Park. Last question that was asked was, can tree funds be used to plant trees in residential neighborhoods that would be impacted by the development project paying into the fund? The short answer is the funds that are paid into the Tree Mitigation Fund are used citywide for citywide priorities. And not necessarily specific to a particular development. And so the tree funds are prioritized to be used within public parks, roadway medians and open space that help to advance the goals and objectives identified in the Urban Forest Master Plan. And so we're typically utilizing those to accomplish goals set forward in the Urban Forest Master Plan, which may or may not be specific to that particular development. So tree funds can also be used for the neighborhood tree giveaways, the tree rebate program that are programs associated with Keep Denton Beautiful. The tree giveaway is the tree your block program. And the tree rebate program is another program that utilizes a rebate program for trees planted within private property. So both the tree your block and the tree rebate program are ways that we can work with private property owners to get trees planted on private property. So we use Tree Mitigation Funds for public property planting. And we have programs in place to help private residents planting on private property as well. So here's the excerpt from the Code of Ordinances. You don't need me to read it for you. I mean, there's specific reference in 774 in the Code of Ordinances for this, but it's very clear what the tree funds can be used for and it enumerates all the different ways that it can be used, essentially, that the Tree Mitigation Funds are in place to help us advance our tree canopy efforts and our environmental goals throughout the city. And so it's very clear what kind of goals we're trying to accomplish in the city and that we are advancing that with this Urban Forest Master Plan. We included a bar graph on this slide just so that we can have some visual in terms of how the funding has been coming in. The blue bar graph represents deposits and the yellow bar graph are the expenditures over the last 10 years. And so you can see that there have been some fluctuation, especially around COVID time in terms of what has been coming in, what has been going out in terms of being for the expenditures. You'll notice the big yellow bar in 2019, 2020 was used for land acquisition. And so that depleted majority of the funds in that year to purchase East Lake Parks property in East Denton. And so following 2019, 2020, you'll see that we were building up the deposits to start implementing more tree growth or tree planting in the subsequent years after that. And I just wanna include some projects from our Arbor Day 2023. This is in South Lakes Park. And this is the tree your block program from 2021. And so we're very excited to announce that we have an urban forestry website created. That is a recent development and accomplishes our goals in the, one of our many goals in the urban forest master plan. So this is a link to that urban forestry website. It has a lot of helpful resources, has links to other webpages very soon once we get the tree inventory processed and visualized in a way that we're able to present it to the public, we'll be posting that on this website as well. We have, as I mentioned, worked with a company called Greenhill over the last couple of years to inventory all these trees. And so they're in the process of processing the last bits of data so that they can help us visualize through a sister company with Davie Tree Resources to get that mapping set up for us. And so once that is done, it'll be live on the urban forestry website. And we also included a couple of other links for the tree rebates program and also the Keep Deton Beautiful website for additional resources. - And with that, I'll take any questions that you may have. - Questions? Yep, Commissioner Perot. - Thank you, Chair. So full disclosure, I'm the one who asked about the nearby neighborhood question number four that I'm sure was confusing and a head scratcher. My intention was really about, I understand our development code has street tree requirements and that sort of thing, but the majority of our lots in the city were developed before 2019 and before 2002. And therefore, there's a lot of areas that do not have street trees. And so I guess my reading of it is you said medians, but my reading is that if there is a, if there is city of right-of-way outside of the roadway cross-section, then street trees could be planted there. But maybe some of these neighborhoods don't necessarily have enough right-of-way on the edge for a tree planting. And so in order to plant street trees in a neighborhood that does not have them with tree mitigation funds, you would have to actually obtain an easement or purchase land, which my reading of that 774 is that no provisions in there would apply toward that capability. Is that accurate? - Yeah, we're not actively seeking to purchase land to plant trees on them or take their easements or things like that. And when I mentioned medians, those are typically the spaces in between the lanes versus the parkways on the outsides of the right-of-way. - Right. - Yep. And so a lot of that is because we control, the city controls the area in the right-of-way. And so, but the street trees would be planted perhaps in the right-of-way, but the maintenance obligations fall to the adjacent property owners for that tree maintenance. And so with us, the city, trying to accomplish our goals, we can plant trees in the middle medians to help with heat island mitigation because the shading can get on concrete in different angles and we have more control over maintaining those trees in the long-term. - Okay, I mean, there's probably grading reasons why trees in the parkway don't require as much active irrigation and that sort of thing, right? - What do you mean by grading reasons? - Well, typically a roadway is crowned, so water's flowing away from the trees now, whereas at the edge, water's flowing toward those areas now, both from the development property as well as from the street. - I see what you mean. - You know, it just seems to me like we ask a lot of residents that are impacted by development to take one for the team, so to speak, and endure larger change near them for the good of the whole city. And we have a lot of streets in neighborhoods and in small business areas that don't have street trees. And it's a clear need, it's a clear benefit to our society, it aids with stormwater retention, it could go on and on, right? And so I'm not saying we have to do that or move toward that, but it seems to me like one sort of low effort, low lift way to make sure that if a development is going in in area A, and because of the particularness of where they have to clear and build the building, et cetera, a high portion of canopy coverage within that area A is going away because of the development, then amending that nearby area with street trees that we know is traffic calming, et cetera, might be a way to make sure that we're improving more than just that one plot of land, so thank you. - Other questions? And there's nothing in the code that talks about something like that can't be done, right? It's just not something you're actively looking to do, is that how I'm interpreting like? - It's not that we are not looking for areas adjacent to existing developments to replant, it's that we're looking at the city holistically in terms of trying to identify needs. And so we look at different factors like the heat island effect throughout the city. We're looking at stormwater areas that we can bolster tree planting in areas that may have less or more need than the areas adjacent to these developments in question. And so I'm not saying that these areas cannot be planted. What we aim to do in terms of those plantings within the rights of way are in the medians, though, not on the parkways. And so I think that if there was a road that kind of fit that criteria, that was adjacent to a private development that was removing a lot of tree canopy, then that might be a good candidate for the city to come in and plant within those medians. But knowing that there are a lot of other priorities throughout the city that need to be addressed as well. - How are those priorities set? - Great question. And so right now we're looking at the Urban Forest Master Plan as a way to revisit after a couple of years now that it's been adopted. We're looking at our data that is coming in to help us establish what our inventory is and integrate the data into a GIS kind of collaborative map that shows those overlays of heat islands, heat island effect throughout the city, city-owned controlled property areas that are lacking in tree canopy in areas that have a greater equity need. And so we're looking at those now actively to help us identify those. The last several projects that we've identified were mainly roadways that were put in that were lacking in tree trees for all intents and purposes, not necessarily connected with a particular development. But like Hickory Creek and some of those others that I mentioned, and those park projects, and those were projects that were very obvious to staff that needed additional trees. And so now that we're getting the data and required to make those kind of city-wide looks, those are things that are already outlined in the Urban Forest Master Plan and we just need to put everything together to kind of put together our, we have a five-year plan but help refine that five-year plan to help us get some of those larger goals met. - Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, and there's no timeline on when funds have to be spent, right? Is there-- - Correct. - There's nothing in there that talks about how much you can have in there and how quick you have to use it, nothing like that. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you for enlightening us on that. - Thank you. - Thank you very much. Okay, our next work session report is 3B-PZ24221. That's received report hold a discussion regarding the Department of Parks and Rec's master planning efforts. Hello. Hello, how are you? - Good. - So good evening. Ramir Martin with Parks Recreation Department. Thank you for having us, being able to have an opportunity to be able to talk about our master plans and updates that we have done thus far. And again, there are two master plans that we're gonna give the update on and the first one is the Parks and Recreation and Trail System Master Plan that was adopted in March 2022, as well as the Aquatics Master Plan that was recently adopted this past February in 2024. And one of the things in these documents, the key findings when you're looking at those first pages, the most used facilities on there, you have our natatorium, the Waterworks Park, you have the dog park, Clear Creek Preservation Area, as well as our senior center, which allows us to be able to know that those are areas that we want to be able to focus on with some of our bond packages that we will speak to in a minute. The top reasons for not using our facilities, this is one that we got to continue to be able to dig into because when you look at some of the ones that are listed on there, again, not knowing where we're at, not knowing the location of some of the things, not meeting the needs of the community, those are things we want to dig into further, but being able to try to address those with some of the bond issues and as we continue to progress on that way. Top desired amenities, again, when you look at some of our trails, they talk about open spaces, splash pads, nature centers and things that way, and then you talk about events, community events. That's one that hopefully if you were around the city in the month of October, you know that that was one that we definitely tried to make some progress on and being able to have some community events and really be able to engage the community with that month, but those are amenities that we're trying to be able to reach and things we're trying to achieve through the master plan. With the vision for the master plan and the goals, there were six goals that were identified there and I kind of point to the first two and the first one because all the two that kind of, you know, address the senior center as well as our pool amenities where it talks about being able to complete our park system and then being able to, you know, make sure our park system amenities are up to what the public is looking for and what they need that way. So there's kind of some images of the, you know, some of the needs that kind of speak to the senior center as well as looking at the, you know, the pool, the aquatics pool, the master plan or the waterworks pool, which are two bond issues that, you know, I speak to that way. So you got the senior center to the active adult center and the improvement to the water park. So the active adult center, that bond issue was approved last November, which we are thankful for as you can see that that was a 47, you know, million dollar bond, you know, with 900 of that going to, you know, public arts and that's design funding will begin next fiscal year, 25, 26. And one of the things that we are now doing with that, because you talk about the progress and challenge, we engaged and created a departmental steering committee, you know, that has been established, being able to, you know, do an internal look at trying to be able to look at the different things of confirming that program for that facility, research and the feasibility of, you know, possible locations as well as identifying future staffing needs. And one of the things that we just spoke with, with, you know, our finance, you know, finance department is looking at trying to get some funds to be able to have a consultant come in and help, being able to help secure the right location or being able to identify that location. Because right now we do have two properties that are there, three properties, when you look at the current location and in Quaker town, as well as you have Mac Park, as well as some property on Orion Road where the library is, which was kind of spoke about a little bit as opposite of different options, but wanted to be able to bring in the consultant to be able to further help validate some of those, those discussions and being able to engage the community in those, those, those talks to make sure we're putting the right product out there, putting the right location and being able to have the right type of staffing needs to be able to support those facilities. And so again, you just seen the pictures of just variety of facilities across the, across the state and across the country. And I point out the two bottom pictures because when I was in the County of Loudoun in Virginia, we had five senior centers that we had built there and the most recent one down there where the conversation came up, Pickleball. So you see that, again, we had a multi-purpose space that actually has three Pickleball courts in it, but then they're multi-purpose spaces to be able to use, as well as the other facility down on the other side, this kind of an active area, kind of a passive area type of deal in there with the like fireplace place in there. And one of the things I looked in there and they wouldn't let me in the senior center quite yet, but there's a nice little fireplace and I wanted to put a chair because it overlooked a nice little pond and outside area, which I try to dedicate that for myself, but I'm no longer gonna be in Loudoun and I'm not gonna be in Loudoun, so I guess that's for somebody else to be able to enjoy. And then you have a Water Works Park phase one, which that was another, you know, bond approved last November. And so the whole park bond was that $33 million bond, but 15 million of it was dedicated, or designated for the phase one of Water Works Park, which actually we're in current design phase of that right now as we speak, just had a meeting this afternoon, really trying to finalize what that plan looks like, but that construction is scheduled to start in the summer and be completed by the following summer for participation. And then on that project, what was listed out in the bond is it is going to be able to look at the projects where there's the unique feature is that youth play feature that's gonna be a nice signature piece to add more usability in there, and then being able to have more outdoor lap lane pool space that we can use to be able to program and have more swim lessons because within an auditorium, there is that competition with being able to supply the DISDs swim programs and aquatics programs, and then there's not enough public space when it comes to lap things, and this will be one of those solutions to be able to try to have those booking seasons when you have, try to have a heated pool where you can still do some stuff to be able to maximize those lanes throughout the year. So that's kind of the phase one, working through that. One of the biggest challenges is the cost of construction keeps going up, and trying to be able to fit that into the budget, one of the challenges is making sure we're able to fulfill the bond request on there with some of those different things, but that's where we're at on that project. That project is getting closer to being able to be completed that way. So that was the pool, the two bond issues that we had that way. Any general questions on that or anything that's dealing with our master planning efforts and trying to be able to be good stewards of, following the plans, I think that's the biggest thing is activating those plans. We pay a lot of money to be able to have plans, and our job is just to be able to continue to activate those and live through what those actions are and trying to be able to do those recommendations. - Questions? Obviously on aquatics, been an awful lot of talk about the pool in the city off Quaker Town. I know that's just a future, right? But can you give us any kind of idea of how you're gonna approach that? - Well, I mean, if you look at the master plan for the aquatics master plan, it spells it out. It's pretty much pretty simple. There's three recommendations that were made in that plan was we maintained business as usual with that, accommodating what's there in a number two, being able to continue to maintain those programs until there's other facilities built that may disperse some of the swim teams or may disperse some of that, and then evaluate that project there then. And the third one is really being able to make sure we have a capital improvement plan in place for an aging facility. And we know that that building is aging out, and at some point, it's gonna have to have major repairs or a replacement on that. But when you're looking at, again, that's our plan is where we're staying the course until we have amenities that can be able to offset that before we can make those type of decisions. So right now, we're just business as usual. The pool is open until further notice, as we start to be able to look at other plans and trying to be able to deal with what we're maybe dealing with Southwest Park and there's other aquatic facilities coming on, then seeing what that does to the population in traffic. But as of right now, we're business as usual and staying the course. - Any questions? Commissioner Prudt? - Yeah, I appreciate the information. And certainly, our parks department is great, right? I sung the praises of our planning department for reaching out during the Southeast Denton Plan. And I remember the efforts that were done during the major parks overall plan back in the 2019 timeframe, I believe it was. And it was, they took advantage of all the places they could go, so not doubting that at all. I do want to bring up a couple things that I see as maybe evidences of the silos in local governance that sometimes need to be peered at and combined between sort of land use objectives and parks and public facilities. You know, when I read through our comp plan, it continually talks about the synergies of public services within the core of town and how that can grow things together. When I look at the history, I see back in the, call it the '80s, I'm sure it's overgeneralization, the suburbanization of Denton really kind of started to grow and pop like a popcorn kernel. And then we had a lot of people not in the core of Denton anymore, right? And so, for whatever reason, our downtown has not had very many people there. And that's why in these plans that are referred to, they make notice that 50% of the people using the Civic Center Pool right now are from summer camps. Well, it's true, it's mostly true, because people don't live downtown. As I shared, when we adopted the downtown plan, the residential home density downtown is lower than that of most suburban neighborhoods that we have, right? So we got a lot of work to do. I see the potential for combined facilities, and I think our downtown plan harnesses that. It shows the importance of having some sort of parkland in southern downtown if there's gonna be a lot of development activity there. I see the potential for a resurgence of students and elderly and everybody who might want to live in the core of our town to be able to utilize services like the Civic Center Pool. But it's not cheap, right? So I understand the rock and the hard place that our Parks Department finds themselves in, looking at facilities and well, where could we site them so that they would get the most use? When I'm looking at it here from a land use perspective, I'm thinking how can we make sure that we allow people to live where they want so that facilities we have can get the most use, right? Just as sort of a better bang for the buck perspective. So, you know, there's also reference in the comp plan about these types of amenities affecting nearby land values and therefore drawing more development and that sort of thing. So I would just ask that as we go through the implementation phases of these plans, we look really hard at does siting civic amenities in the outskirts of our town align with where we want the growth to occur? So, thank you. - Thank you, other questions? What's the, how often is the master plan looked at? Like, what is that timeline for you all? - Typically a master plan is, you know, five to 10 year, you know, type of deal. I mean, with ours being just in 2022, we're in year two and year three of it. So there's a lot that is still needs to be unpacked, a lot that we can still address, but each year we look at it from a strategic plan and try to be able to-- - Okay, that was gonna be my next question, so annually you review that? - Yeah, you put a strategic plan to try to be able to attack some of those concerns or some of those issues that were addressed in that master plan and try to eat that elephant like one bite at a time to, you know, kind of have a plan where you're making the right decision, especially when you start getting to budget time and you start to need resources and things that way, but really looking at how do we maximize our resources, you know, maximize our partners. Right now we're, and in conversations with UNT and TI, you know, DISD because their school systems are growing, their needs are growing. How do we, you know, maximize those resources? When you look at, we have a volleyball program that's about to kick off that has grown from 45 teams or 100 teams and serving over 2,000 youth. And right now we're at the, you know, the mercy of UNT to use their facilities as well as DISD to try to use their facilities that way where we're renters, we're users of those spaces and how do we maximize that? Because right now we're getting to that capacity when we're looking at our capacity for growth that we may have to make some of those tough decisions of do we cap our programs? And then we have a city that's just growing, but we don't want to cap, but we need those resources to be able to do that. So I think, you know, every year we're looking at how to be able to activate our plans, but also living in a everyday, you know, existence of saying, how do we strategically continue to be able to serve? - And so you're staying on top of any changes that occur that you need to be on top of. That's great, that's great. Anything else? Thank you. - Thank you. - Very much. - Appreciate it. - Yeah, I appreciate you being here and taking the time and filling us in. - This is what we do, you know, this is what we do. I mean, this is a part of being able to educate on, you know, uniting, growing, and playing together. So hopefully you guys took a part of Halloween. I think Gary said we're going to cancel next year so that we're not doing Halloween for 31 days. We're only going to do it... (all laughing) 35 days. - Starting early. - Starting early. There's only what, four weeks, four weekends in this October coming up. So we have to find a way to maximize that fifth week somehow, so. - Oh, but a new review. (all laughing) You already found a need. We do have another report, and that is 3C-PZ24211. And I'm thinking we might want to do that as late as it is. Why don't we take a quick recess, grab your food, come back as soon as you can so then Haley can start the presentation. We'll go ahead and recess at 6.05. - Good evening, and welcome to the City of Denton's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for Wednesday, November 13th, 2024. With a quorum present, I'll call us to order at 6.36 p.m. First item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. and Texas Flags. - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag, and pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. - Thank you. First item of business for us is to consider approval of our minutes from September 25th meeting and October 23rd meeting. Commissioner Villarreal. - Move approval. - Thank you, Commissioner Padrone. - Second. - Okay, we've got a first and a second for approval. Any discussion? Okay, let's vote on the board, please. That motion carries four zero. That will take us to our consent agenda for this evening. Commissioner Villarreal. - Move approval. - Commissioner Padrone. - Second. - First and a second for approval of our consent agenda. Any discussion? Okay, let's vote on the board, please. That motion carries four zero. That will take us to items for individual consideration, our first being 4A, FP240039. Mia is here for presentation. - Good evening, Chair. Members of the commission. Give me a second to pull up the presentation here. Apologies, this is. Okay, here we go. All right, Mia Hines, senior planner. This is a final plat for the Steward Apartment Addition located at the southwest corner of Luke 288 and Steward Road. At this time, the plat does not meet all of our criteria for approval, so we are recommending denial. However, staff has no objection to the request of extension to December 11, 2024. At this time, I'll take any questions. - Thanks, Mia. - Any questions from you? Thank you very much. Commissioner Villarreal. - Move approval of the extension request to a date certain of December 11, 2024. - Thank you, Commissioner Pruitt. - Second. - Okay, we've got a first and a second to approve the extension request to a date certain of December 11, 2024. Any discussion? Okay, let's go ahead and vote, please. That motion carries four, zero. That will take us to 4B, ZCP 240034. Mia is here once again. - Good evening again, Chair. Good evening again, Chair, members of the commission, Mia Hines, senior planner. This item is a zoning compliance plan for the Predera at Razor Ranch. It's a, the consideration is for a site plan for new multifamily residential development on a lot at approximately eight acres located south of Panhandle Street, 200 feet east, I'm sorry, west of North Bonnie Bray. Adjacent land uses for this development. The property itself is undeveloped. There are additional multifamily developments to the north in developing multifamily residences to the north there. There's a medical office to the south, an undeveloped property to the west, and a gas-full and drainage facilities to the east of the property. The zoning here is the south mixed use district two, that's the base zoning within the Razor Ranch overlay, and the residential or multifamily residential proposed land use that they are trying to develop with this site is permitted under that zoning. Just a little reminder, we don't see zoning compliance plans often. The Razor Ranch overlay does require site plans to be approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission as opposed to the typical administrative review process that we do, and with this review, we do have a site plan for you, landscape plan, as well as four-sided conceptual building elevations. We are looking to make sure that it complies with the requirements of the Razor Ranch overlay and the approval criteria listed here. The site plan itself, just a little detail, that full layout has been provided to you in your packet. There was an update since the publication of the backup for this meeting. The minor changes that you might notice from what was published and what you have received today is that there are some utility relocates in this northern corner of this parking row, as well as some trees added in place of those utilities also. The proposal comes with a one-residential, one-multi-family residential building with 242 units, a total of just over 41,000 square feet of open space. That includes a pool courtyard area within the middle of the building, a dog park and a pickleball court sort of on the southern end of the building, and then parking is per the requirements of the proposed unit breakdown at 387 spaces. And then this site overall has access, two driveway accesses to Panhandle Street as well as a driveway to the south through this little sort of narrow strip here onto Scripture Street. They are meeting the landscape requirements. The minimum landscape area requirement for this sub-area is 10%. They are offering 18% as well as the minimum tree canopy coverage that is supposed to be 20%. They are offering well over that at 37%. They are proposing street trees, given consideration to existing easements and things of that nature, and parking will be screened. All parking visible from Panhandle Street will be screened. So here are the proposed conceptual elevations. As you can see, they're proposing various masonry material for the buildings. The building itself is supposed to stand at four stories, and that is, of course, in keeping with the razor ranch requirements. So again, they are meeting all of our criteria for approval, and with that, staff is recommending approval. At this time, I will take any questions or comments you have. - Thank you, ma'am. Any questions? Okay, thank you very much. This time, Chair can look for discussion or a motion. Commissioner Prueck? - I'll move approval as presented. - Thank you. Second? I'll go ahead and second. Got a first and a second for approval. Any discussion? Okay, let's go ahead and vote, please. That motion carries four zero. That takes us to four C, FP2, four zero zero three one. Angie is here for presentation. (clears throat) - Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Angie Manglaris, development review manager, here to present FP2, four zero zero three one. This is a final plat for Hobson Lane. It's a storage facility, or proposed storage facility, on a zoning of SC. It is approximately 2.1 acres of land generally situated at the northeast intersection of Country Club and Hobson Lane. At this time, there are some outstanding comments, and staff is recommending denial of this final plat, however, has no objection to the request and extension, which could be granted to a date certain of December 11th. This would be their first extension request. I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have. - Thank you. Questions for Angie? Commissioner Villarreal. - Move approval of the extension request to a date certain of December 11th, 2024. - Thank you, Commissioner Prueck? - Second. - Got a first and a second to grant the extension request to a date certain of December 11th, 2024. Discussion? Okay, let's vote, please. That motion carries four zero. That will take us to our public hearings for this evening. I will just make note that public hearing five D, that's the last one on the agenda, that one will not be heard tonight, that is being postponed to our December 11th meeting, and that's five D A E S A two four zero zero zero three. So with that, we'll move into five A, PD two four zero zero zero three. I will open the public hearing and Angie is here for presentation. - Thank you, Chair and members of the commission. Angie Manglaris, development review manager, I'm here to present PD 24 zero zero zero three, the reserves at Brush Creek. A little bit about this request and some site data. This is a rezoning request from RR and R1 districts to a planned development district with the base zoning of R4. You all did previously see a case on this, the subject property a little over a year ago in June of 2023, that was a straight zoning request. For a total of 18 acres of land that contemplated R6 on approximately 15 acres of land and SC on the remainder at the hard corner of US 377 and Brush Creek Road. At that time, several members of the public did speak, expressing concern specifically surrounding the residential uses, the density of R6, as well as other residential uses that could be allowed by right in the R6 zoning, including duplexes and townhomes. And the planning and zoning commission did recommend denial of that request and indicated this development would be best to come back as a planned development request where the site plan could be specified and where the development standards could be amended where necessary to address some of the residential concerns. So that's a little bit of history on this project. So this is the rezoning request is for 15.44 acres of land. It's generally situated at the Northeast intersection of US 377 and Brush Creek Road. It is predominantly open pasture. It does have an existing residential structure on site along with some associated accessory structures. It is part of a larger 18 acre tract of land. The hard corner is not considered as part of this request that will retain the R1 zoning. And at a future date, should the applicant wish could come in and request a development at that time. The future land use in this area is predominantly neighborhood mixed use with rural residential along the Eastern property line. It is surrounded to the North and South by R2 and R1 zoning in the city limits. To the East is city of Denton ETJ. It is a established single family residential neighborhood. To the West is US 377. Further West of that is PD zoning. It is residential is the Sagebrook development which is currently under development. Road systems in the area to the West is US 377. It's a North South roadway. It is owned and maintained by TechStot. It is designated as a primary arterial on the mobility plan. It's ultimately planned to be a six lane undivided roadway. At this time, TechStot's project tracker does not have an estimated start date on when improvements to that roadway would occur. Brush Creek Road is located to the South of the subject property. It is an East West roadway. It is designated as a primary arterial and ultimately will be realigned Westward connecting with Allred Road, serving as an East West regional connection. So the development plan, I'm gonna talk just a little bit about the specifics of this plan. This is for a 42 lot single family residential development. It is a proposed gated community with privately owned and maintained streets. The development standards which are adopted as part of this PD restrict allowable uses to single family residential homes as the primary use along with some customary accessory uses including an accessory structure or a detached garage. It does have a base zoning of R4 with slightly larger lot sizes than what is required by DDC with 60 feet wide by 120 feet deep versus 50 feet wide and 80 feet deep per straight DDC. It does add the definition of lot width type B which applies to these thoughts here. It's really these two. We're situated on a curve linear street. It takes the lot width at the front line setback rather than along the right of way. The proposed PD location given that it's situated at the intersection of two primary arterials is appropriate in scale. It does provide a transitional area from the higher density developments that we are seeing and expect to see along US 377 to the lower density developments in the east in the city's ETJ. A little bit about the landscape plan. Along the eastern property line, the PD does provide a 10 foot wide landscape buffer. It consists of a six foot tall masonry wall and a continual row of trees. The southwestern property line of the PD district does provide for a 15 foot wide landscape buffer between the developing tract and the remainder tract. The development plan includes approximately 8.6 land area of open space. That includes a retention pond as well as some passive recreational areas that are linked through an internal sidewalk. Where street tree requirements could not be met at our rate of one tree per every 30 linear feet, those trees were placed in HOA lots for a total of 15 street trees situated in HOA lots. This was reviewed in accordance with our general criteria for approval as well as criteria for approval for plan development districts. Staff is recommending approval. It is consistent with the comprehensive plan. It does provide a greater level of specificity and detail than required by the DDC. It is intended to promote compatibility with the area and minimize adverse impacts. A little bit more about that. As stated earlier, predominantly the future land use for this area is neighborhood mixed use which calls for predominantly residential development. It does note that some local serving retail uses are appropriate along the eastern property line is some rural areas future land use designation as you transition further east toward the city's ETJ. The subject property does serve as that transitional area as stated earlier from the higher intensity and density uses along US 377 as you move east towards the city's ETJ. The PD does limit allowable land uses and it establishes enhanced design standards that are intended to reduce incompatibilities. This is also consistent with the population projections of the 2040 comprehensive plan, specifically table 1.3 which calls for the additional need for approximately 19,800 single family detached housing units in the city. This development would provide an additional 42 units. Likewise, it is consistent with goal HN1 to develop and maintain a housing stock that meets the needs of all residents. There is no ESA or other areas designated to be preserved on our maps and so it is consistent with the preferred land preservation plan. Just a little bit more in detail regarding design standards and compatibility. There are a couple standards that I'd like to point out where this PD proposes a greater level of detail than what will be required by the DDC by right. So first, this PD is not introducing any new or incompatible activities to the area. As I said, they are restricting the allowable uses in the zoning to single family residential and customary accessory uses. When residential is developing adjacent to existing residential, the DDC compatibility buffer requirements do not require any additional buffering between those two land uses. The applicant is providing a 10 foot wide landscape buffer along the eastern property line of the PD where adjacent to existing single family. Likewise, a 15 foot wide landscape buffer is being provided along the southwestern property line of the PD district next to the undeveloped out parcel. The landscaped HOA lots are intended to provide some visual relief along public rights of way and the PD is proposing a slightly larger R4 lot size which will maximize distance between the existing homes in the proposed new development. Public outreach was conducted in accordance with state law and the Denton Development Code. This property is, as we stated, bordered by some land area in the ETJ. So six notices were mailed to property owners within 200 feet and 70 postcards were sent out to those within 500 feet. Several emails have been received since the packet did go out and those have been forwarded to you. Since the last time a case on this site was considered by the Planning and Zoning Commission, the applicant has held three neighborhood meetings. Staff is recommending approval as it meets our general criteria for approval as well as criteria for approval for plan development districts. The next step would be city council on December 3rd. I am happy to answer any questions you all may have. The applicant is also here with a presentation and they can answer any questions you have. - Great, thank you Angie. Questions for Angie? Quick one, with Sagebrook you mentioned it's zoned PD. It does not have an underlying zoning? - It does, it may be R6, but I can check that real quick and come back and confirm. - Yeah, and that's what it looks like to me as well. - It's R6, yes, it's R6. - Yeah, okay, very good. Thank you. Anything else for Angie? Okay, with that then, we'll go ahead and invite the applicant down for presentation. Hi, if you'll give us your name, your time will begin. - Hello, good evening commissioners. My name's Omar Awais. I am the owner of Kana Capital and we are representing the owner of this property under our Kana Consulting business. And you wanna introduce yourself as well? - Addison Rogers, I'm the director of community planning for Toll Brothers. - Great. - Great. I think we have a presentation. (Annie laughs) Is it up here? - Sorry, yeah. - There we go, awesome. All right, good evening commissioners. It's good to see you again. Last time you saw me was about a year ago and I wanted to quickly go through some of the history here. Just as a reminder, I know Angie did a great job with going through everything that's happened over the last year on this. But this property has been presented to PNZ more than just one time. I think it's probably three, maybe even four times. And it started off with a multifamily proposal that obviously didn't go through. It went to a different kind of multifamily. That didn't go through. And then the last time was with me and I came in and we presented an R6 zoning and presented 40 foot lots in the neighborhood. I wanna say it was somewhere in the range of 60 to 75 lots. I forget how many lots it was. And obviously that was denied due to a lot of opposition from both the neighbors and then several comments that we received from PNZ. So since we started working on this project, we've held neighborhood meetings, quite a few of them, six total neighborhood meetings. And we've had attendance from a lot of the residents. The folks that we've invited to these neighborhood meetings were not just people within the city of Denton. It was also with folks within the ETJ. We wanted to reach out to everybody that was surrounding the area to make sure that neighbors were involved in this process. Now we've obviously received a lot of comments from neighbors. The biggest one is we'd rather not see anything developed here. Short of that, we were trying to take as many comments as we can from the neighbors and try to incorporate as much as we possibly can into the plan while also making it possible for us to develop it. So I went through just five really five big points here on what we've done since the last time we've been here. One of the biggest comments that we got was if you do an R6 zoning, by right you might be able to do duplexes and townhomes and potentially high density type development out here. The recommendation was to come back with a PD with a set number of lots, single family, and a whole bunch of other requirements and restrictions, which I'm sure you're all familiar with the PDs in the city of Denton. They can be very detailed and quite a bit of work goes into pulling those documents together. So we've pretty much spent the last year going through that. One of the other comments we got was neighbors to the east really wanted some privacy on the east side backing up to their houses. So it was suggested that we put up a six foot masonry screening wall on the east side. We did that. In addition to that, we also put a landscape buffer so that we can plant a whole bunch of trees all the way down and provide even an extra layer of privacy on there. So you can see that on the exhibit there where the green line is on the east side of the property. One other comment we got was from the neighbors. That was not from you commissioners was bringing homes in the two to $300,000 range with impact values for specialty properties to the east. One really only way to be able to help accommodate some of those comments was to turn this into a, more of a luxury neighborhood. And the way to do that is really two ways. One, which is increase the size of the lots so you can increase the size of the homes which we've done here. We went from 40 foot lots to not 50 foot lots, but 60 foot lots and reduced our lot countdown to 42 lots. The second thing we did was convert this to a gated community, which allows us to be able to build more luxurious home in this neighborhood and allows us to be able to charge more per square foot because gated communities help us accommodate that. One other comment that we received also last time we were here is you all wanted very specific information on who the builder was gonna be and pictures and images of what houses were gonna be built here just to be able to visualize what this neighborhood is gonna look like. So we're happy to say that we have Toll Brothers on board. I'm sure you're all very familiar with Toll Brothers. They're very big in DFW. They're actually very big nationally. They're a great luxury builder all around the Metroplex. I know they have some projects in Denton that they're doing right now, along with a lot of other surrounding cities. So I invited Addison here with me right after I finished with this slide. He'll go through exactly the houses that we're planning on building in this neighborhood so everybody can get a good look of what that's gonna look like. Back to the gated community. One of the comments that we also received was maintenance on public streets and reducing the burden on the city to maintain streets for new developments. That was another reason that we converted this to a gated community so that the HOA and the residents can maintain the streets and it wouldn't be an additional burden on the city of Denton. Really, all in all, look, we've gone through this for quite some time now. As the developers, I feel like we've given up quite a bit for this property and to accommodate what surrounding residents want, what you all commissioners would want, and what the city would like to see. We've really tried to provide a really nice product here, something that the city can be proud of, something that we can be proud of, and we've readjusted and reworked through the land plan many, many times at this point, and I feel like this is something that will not only be able to allow us to be able to develop this property that's been sitting out here for a really long time, but it would also allow us to build something that works in this area. It's a good transition spot between the acre lots to the east and the 40, 50 foot lots to the west, and having Toll Brothers on board to do this only adds to the legitimacy of the project along with the luxurious and beautiful aspects of the homes that we're gonna be able to build here. So I'll stop talking here and we'll go to the next slide here and I'll let Addison start going through Toll Brothers. - Appreciate it, Omar. So as I mentioned earlier, my name's Addison Rogers, Director of Community Planning for Toll Brothers here in Dallas. For any of you guys that may not be overly familiar with Toll, who we are, we are a national home builder currently building in about 60 markets across 24 states and across this great country. With that said, up in front of you is this slide that's from our website. It kinda highlights the pillars of who we are as a company and what we believe. Most specifically, the idea that we wanna build in prestigious locations, communities like the Preserve at Brush Creek and Denton. We have featured distinctive architecture that also goes with unrivaled choice. That's kind of the combination of the uniqueness of the plans that we bring as well as our individual selections that we offer to our buyers, be that as offered options inside of the home or structural options that they can add to make each individual home unique to their individual family and how they intend to use the property. And lastly, it's that idea of extraordinary customer service from the second that you walk into any one of our model selling centers through the last end of warranty meeting that you'll have with our team as your home expires the structural foundational warranty many years down the line. Our goal is just to deliver an experience to our buyers that's unmatched in the new home production world. With that, we're just gonna chat quickly on some of the intended architectural styles that we would love to see built in this community. Very similar, if you guys are familiar with our Vickery project down in Copper Canyon, you can see some of this architecture that's been built in that community. As Omar mentioned, we're also currently building in Denton in our Parkview community, which has been a great success for both us and I believe the city of Denton as well. In front of you, this is our Hill Country elevation. So this is an ode to kind of the both Hill Country in Texas and more Southwestern architectural style. These plans are gonna feature stone as well as some stucco and some metal roof accents. Again, just really calling into that Southwestern architecture. Our Tudor elevations are a modern spin on what has been a very traditional plan. Those are gonna be a painted brick as well as the just modern steep pitch roof lines as you would see common to a Tudor plan. Classic, this is a minimalist plan, if you will. The devil here is in the details. It's in the small brick detailing, the soldier courses, brick rows. And again, that painted brick, just super elegant when delivered as we can in our communities. Modern farmhouse, contemporary twist on a staple that built this country across the United States. Again, vertical board and batten as a primary distinctive decorative feature as well as some stone stucco and brick work as well. And then last one that we'll talk about quickly is just our Mediterranean, whether that be products similar to like a French Riviera or more on the Iberian Peninsula or even towards the GNC area in Greece. But these are that typical low pitch, they will have a tile roof that you can see is, again, super popular both in North Texas and a classic piece of architecture. With that, any questions? We're here. Let me find, I'm gonna switch my screen back to see if we've got any questions for you. Commissioner Villarreal. - Thank you, Chair, this is for Omar. Appreciate you coming back with this compromise plan. I know in the backup material, and you mentioned during your presentation, that you had three additional meetings with the community. At the end of the meetings, the community, were they amenable to your compromise plan? Were they amenable to the changes you were making? - So I'd say, in all honesty, 75% were probably not. We had a meeting a couple of weeks ago, one person showed up to that meeting and they were not on board with the project. Even we tried to explain everything that we've done. The meeting before that was probably a little bit better. There were some conversations about what can we possibly do and we talked about that, including the fence on the east side, including the pond and having the fountain in it and all the landscaping going on there and making it gated and talked about traffic issues and the TIA that we did. So we really tried, it's a judgment call. I guess we'll find out tonight. I'm sure you'll hear a lot of opposition to this, but we really did try the best that we could and took a lot of the comments and just did what we could. I think intent is a really important thing here. The fact that we reached out to residents that were not in the city of Denton, that were in the ETJ, just to make sure, because they're neighbors, we wanted to make sure we did the right thing. We invited everybody we possibly could to these meetings. We send out things in the mail. We reached out to HOAs to let them know, to blast it out that there's a neighborhood meeting happening. So we did the best we could, but I obviously can't make everybody happy. - Appreciate your perspective. Looking forward to hearing from the community. Thanks. - Yep, thank you. - Thanks. Anything else for our applicant? Omar, let me ask you this. With the line of trees that will buffer that neighborhood, to the east, what are you thinking, envisioning? 'Cause all those have to be planted, right? There's nothing there now. - There's nothing there now. So not only is there a line of trees, there's also a six foot brick screening wall in addition to that. I believe we call out the type of trees that we have on there. What will end up happening is once those houses are built, 'cause you don't wanna plant the trees too early and then home building starts, you tear those trees up. So what will happen is part of the development, we'll put the screening wall up to provide that privacy immediately. And then once the houses are built, with every house that gets built, Toll Brothers will come in and they put the trees in the backyard within that easement. All that's included not only in the PD, but it's included in the CCNRs and the HOA guidelines to make sure that those trees get planted. Whether Toll decides to wanna do them or not, it can't. It's in the CCNRs and it has to be done that way. Otherwise, the HOA will have to come in and do it for them. - Okay, good, great. Anything else at the moment? Okay, we'll let y'all sit down and we'll call you back up if we've got other questions. - Perfect, thank you for your time. - Sure, thank you. I don't have any cards wishing to speak. I've got a couple of cards not wishing to speak. So when I call you, if you want to speak and you've changed your mind, please raise your hand. If you will then give all the cards, please, to our secretary, that would be great. That way I'll have the cards. (laughing) In the meantime, I'll call out what I have now. Jay Suk is in opposition, not wishing to speak. David, it's hard for me to read that. David and Shen Brunson in opposition, not wishing to speak. Amy Blackburn in opposition, not wishing to speak. Okay. Let's see, I've got Carol Hasley is wishing to speak or I probably said your name wrong and I apologize. - Hi. - Hi. - If you could just state your name, your time will begin. - Carol Hasley, I live in the hills of Argyle which is right behind this development. I'm gonna admit that I'm not really prepared. We were here last time when it was the other proposal. I guess I wanna know with a, it came up last time, this whole plan development. How do we hold them to what they say if it gets approved because those are the details I don't understand. I'm still not sure that R4 sounds like the right buffer. Gated community, how do they, what happens when they don't do that? What happens when it's not gated? What happens when it's not the luxury development? Can you, yeah, I just have a lot of questions so every instinct in me is to still be opposed to it. - Thank you for sharing that. I'm gonna actually have Tina address some of your questions 'cause yeah, most of your concerns are actually written in this PD, so. - Thank you, I was trying to make sure I get all of your questions. So the main issue regarding how do we hold them to what is being presented. So the plan development district standards that are included in the agenda packet this evening have all of the development requirements that Ms. Manglera spoke to. So the plans that were included as part of the agenda materials will be attached to the ordinance and that is what we enforce. The pictures that are shown regarding the builder, the plan development district does not stipulate which builder has to build within the neighborhood. So while the applicant currently has Toll Brothers in partnership with them, there's no guarantee that Toll Brothers would actually be the builder associated with that. That could change. We do not stipulate within plan development district regulations what builders build within the development. Regarding the R4 being the correct buffer, based upon our analysis and looking at the zoning in the area, we believe that the R4 district would be appropriate, especially given the concerns that were expressed at the prior meeting with I believe it was the R6 that was previously presented several months back. And then regarding the gated requirement, so that is included within the plan development district and so if this request were ultimately be approved by city council, then the private streets and gated requirement holds true. If the applicant in the future, Ursus Magus, if this development is approved and the lots get built and residents live there and later on the residents decide that they no longer want to maintain the streets, they would have to have the zoning amended to remove that requirement. And then, and I guess your last point was the builder, so I've addressed that. So I believe I addressed all your questions. - Thank you, Tina, I appreciate it. Next card I have is Dennis Brown. I think it says Brown, I'm sorry if it doesn't. (Tina laughs) - I'm Dennis Brown. - Hi there. - I'm a resident of Country Club Village. I think the proposal sounds great and it looks great, but being the city of Argyle, those students or those will go to Argyle School District, correct? We're overcrowded. I don't know if you've ever been down Brush Creek Road, but the roads on the side are falling off, the construction and so forth. You can hardly even get down. It's a 30 mile an hour road. Would this, would they be required to fix that road or something? Or is that the city that would have to fix that road? 'Cause right now, they have an entrance going in there. That road is absolutely atrocious. I mean, the plan looks great and so forth, but they're going to our school that's already overcrowded. Our taxes are through the roof and it's just gonna put more children at our school that our school taxes and stuff would be paying for. And I don't know if they, when Buckeyes is put in, they always put in the road infrastructure and so forth, but that road right there at Brush Creek is absolutely atrocious. And I don't know how I can support going into there and putting more traffic on 377 and Brush Creek. So, that's my concerns. - Thank you for sharing them. Angie, can I invite you down, please, while we've got these questions right in front of us, for you to address anything. Does the developer have to do anything with regard to the road right now? And have you talked to Argyle ISD or has the developer with regard to this development going in? - I did connect with Argyle ISD. I'll address that one. That's the easier one first. Just to see what the development was on the radar and also to predict how many students that this development would produce. We have our own equation for DISD, but rely on Argyle ISD as they're their own experts. They do predict that this would add 31 students to the district. I did not receive any indication that that was a number that could not be accommodated by the schools. So that's the information I have from Argyle ISD on that. Regarding Brush Creek Lane or road, it is designated on the 2022 mobility plan as a primary arterial. At this time, it is not at primary arterial status and the developer is required to dedicate to achieve one half of the ultimate right of way. So primary arterial has an ultimate right of way of 135 feet along their property line. They're required to dedicate to achieve 67 and a half feet as well as make those improvements along their property line. Ultimately, at a future date, I don't have that date, it's not slated yet, but Brush Creek is slated to be improved as a primary arterial, serving as that ultimate east-west connection really throughout the city. It would connect into Hickory Creek Road further to the east and then as you move west to Allred, providing for that east-west primary arterial connection. So those improvements are obviously longer term, whereas the applicant is required to improve their frontage with construction. - Great, thank you for addressing that. I'm gonna continue to read cards that I have. David Haslees is in opposition, does not wish to speak unless they've changed their mind. Okay. Alexander Allen, not wishing to speak? Okay, in opposition. Lane Tidwell, in opposition, not wishing to speak? Okay. And Charles Cassidy, in opposition, not wishing to speak? Or would you like to? If you would like to, yeah, please come down to the microphone and the floor will be yours as soon as you give us your name. - Yes, Charles Cassidy, Hills of Argo. I was just curious regarding the meetings he mentioned to the neighbors. So as far as the neighbors in the area, did you receive an invitation? - If you could speak into the microphone, I'm sorry. - I'm sorry. So show of hands for neighbors in the area. Okay, in the area. Did you receive an invitation to any meeting? Okay, thank you. - Okay, thank you. I don't have any cards in front of me. Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item? Okay, with that, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. I'm gonna open the floor for discussion or a motion. Omar, I do have a question for you, if you don't mind coming back down here, 'cause I'm gonna ask that with what was just brought up. Can you tell me where you mailed to? - We have a list, we got a list from Angie about, I wanna say, was it a year ago or so? Whenever we started doing the whole neighborhood meeting thing, we have a list of addresses, and we've got, I can provide that list to you after this meeting. It's the same list that we've sent it out for all six meetings. - It's the notification. - Well, not only the notification, no, we also added to it the properties to the east. I'm not sure why folks haven't received it, but we have, I can provide that list to you. There was, Tara, how many were there on that? - About 32. - 32. So we sent out 32 bailers to folks for these meetings within two weeks of any meeting before it was held. So, again, not sure where, why people were receiving it, but folks showed up to the meeting. - Well, yeah, I guess I'm assuming you didn't hit all of Hills of Argyle. - Yeah, it wasn't the entire Hills of Argyle, exactly. Yeah, it was people within an X distance. - Yeah, 'cause I think, yeah, there's only maybe a street that comes within that 500-foot buffer anyway, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Okay, thank you, I appreciate that. - Thank you. - Commissioner Pruitt. - Thank you, Chair. A question for staff about some utility locations and how that works out. Sorry, the map, the GIS map I'm looking at, I think it used to have water and wastewater layers on there, and I don't see it now. So, I'm just trying to understand, would this water and wastewater service be extended southward along 377 from the north of Hickory Creek? Where are utilities coming from, and who pays for the extensions from, and where do they exist to? Does that make sense? - Sure, and I would have to go back and look at the utility plan. You are correct, our infrastructure's not available on GIS anymore for... Legal reasons, security reasons. It has been reviewed by our engineering team, as well as representatives from our water and wastewater departments, and they have determined that the connections can be made. I do believe that they were from the north, but again, I would wanna verify on that plan before answering with certainty. But no capacity issues were identified, and they did receive the okay to move forward with the plans as presented from a utility aspect. - Okay, yeah, I guess I'm just trying to identify whether this would require non-pipe infrastructure that would have to move into the city's capital plan or not, be it lift stations or pump stations to achieve pressure, given there's a Hickory Creek corridor north of here, and that sort of thing. So maybe you don't have all the answers, but if there's any way to speak to that or give me any information, I'd appreciate it. - Sure, and I can certainly, I don't have all the information. To my understanding, there was no lift station needs identified as part of this project, but if it's okay with you and members of the commission, I'd like to report back with more firm answers than that. I can send it out to you all via an email as part of a follow-up and include it in the council backup so that information is provided. - Okay, thank you. - Thank you. - Thanks, Angie, I don't see any other questions at the moment. Yeah, are there any questions, discussions? Motion? Okay, well, I'm gonna go ahead and move approval and I'll say why. This plan, compared to anything we've seen on this, it makes sense being transitional from the rural houses around it, with the density that's across the street, and this is less, with the restrictions in the PD with regard to lot size, with the gated community. There has been engagement in the neighborhood. We do have a lot of opposition cards here. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly why. One concern was raised that, how is this guaranteed? And those questions were answered. The rest, unfortunately, I don't know why, we don't know why, we didn't hear why. So that would be helpful, but without that, I have to go with what staff presented with what I know and what I can see with the project presented, and it's a good plan. I hope it is Toll Brothers if this does go forward, because they're a fantastic builder. It would be great to have in the city of Denton another project by them. So with that, I do motion approval. And we'll see if anyone would like to second that. Okay, seeing none, we will pull that. So we do have to take action, Commissioner Villarreal. - Move denial. - Got a first for denial. Okay, Commissioner, well, we do have to take action on this so we could continue the discussion. Please, Hillary. - Observing that we have four commissioners present and that there is some reluctance to second either motion. A third option, main DB to motion to continue. - Continue to where we have a bigger commission. - That wouldn't result in a tie. - Well, we can't even get a motion on the floor at the moment. Okay, we do have utility information, okay. Well, with that, since we don't have a second there, go ahead, Tina, with your information, please. - So I received correspondence from the staff that there is water, existing water to the north and then also sanitary sewer available to the south. - Commissioner Pruitt. - Okay. I'll move approval, but I have a few thoughts and thank you for that update, Tina. These types of applications are what happen when we do the whole baby bath water thing. I don't feel that this commission has a mandate to continue the segregation of economically separated housing in this city. I don't feel like extending development south of Hickory Creek is wise from a fiscal or growth perspective. Will it happen and come north to us? Yes. With that said, there are some benefits to how this sausage is made and we'll just see what happens with four members. Thank you. - So your motion is to-- - Sorry, I move approval. - I will second. So now we've got a first and a second for approval on the floor. Discussion, thoughts? Okay, let's go ahead and vote, please. Okay, that motion will pass 3-1. That will move it to city council. Angie, you told me December 3rd it will go to city council. That will take us then to our next public hearing, that is 5B PDA 240002. I will open the public hearing and Angie is here for presentation and we will give it just a couple of minutes for the room to clear. (people chattering) (people chattering) Okay. (people chattering) (people chattering) - Amy, just there. - Yes. (coughs) (people chattering) (people chattering) - That is a loud group. Yeah, I think you can go ahead and start with microphone, I'll drown that out a bit. - All right, chair, members of the commission, Angie Megler is development review manager, here to present to you PDA 240002. This is elite hospitality, Pickleball and Restaurant. So a little bit about this request. This request is to amend an existing overlay plan development district with a base zoning of MN. This is approximately a 3.185 acre tract of land as currently undeveloped. It's located east of I-35 North and approximately 1,078 feet south of Windsor Drive. It has a future land use designation of low residential. Zoning in the vicinity is varied. To the north is existing PDMN. To the northeast east, southeast and south is residential zoning, R6 and R3. To the west is I-35 North and further west of that is highway corridor zoning. So as stated, this is a request to amend an existing overlay plan development and I'd like to spend a little bit time to talk about the current zoning on the property, which is PDMN. So back in 2020, there was a straight zoning case for this piece of property from R2 to mixed use neighborhood. At the time that this was considered, to address several neighboring concerns, the applicant proposed several conditions. And those conditions were attached to the adopting ordinance creating what we call today an overlay PD. Some of those conditions that were adopted at the time of the zoning ordinance were prohibiting several land uses that included hotels, motels, bars, taverns, multifamily developments, establishing site design requirements, specifically requirements that restrict buildings adjacent to residential zoning to be medical and professional offices. And so we have residential zoning, as stated to the east and to the south, as well as some parking orientation requirements. The purpose of this amendment is really twofold. The PD overlay at the time did not adopt a concept plan, creating a bit of ambiguity and how to enforce some of these standards, specifically the adjacency requirements. The site plan that was shown at that PNZ meeting contemplated a garden-style development with approximately seven padstites. Those conditions are not necessarily conducive to a single building development on this lot. So it's to remove challenging and problematic language, as well as to incorporate additional language to address concerns as it relates to the development of this site as an indoor recreational facility. So that's a little bit of the history. This proposed plan development, overlay plan development, as stated, removes some of the language in the original adopting ordinance that limits uses adjacent to the eastern and southern boundary. It does retain all of the same prohibited land uses, as well as the restricted access from Colonial Drive. So access from Colonial Drive, which is just to the south of the site, remains as emergency only. And it does add several provisions to address neighboring concerns, including height restrictions, enhanced landscape buffering requirements, increased setback requirements, and building design specification standards specific to the development of an indoor recreational facility. This was reviewed against our general criteria for approval, as well as our criteria for approval for plan development. Staff does find that it is consistent with those criteria for approval and is recommending approval. As stated, the future land use for this site is low residential, which does predominantly envision lower density single-family residential neighborhoods, ranging from one acre lots up to five units per acre. Low residential future land use category also recognizes that land uses that support residential neighborhoods may also be appropriate in this area. While the proposed development is not consistent with the intent that this developed predominantly as low density residential, it is consistent with the idea that supporting land uses in residential areas may be appropriate within the low residential category. Furthermore, given the site's proximity to I-35 and specifically its access on I-35 frontage roads, it's unlikely that this site does develop as low density residential, and the PDM and zoning that exists today is appropriate for this site's location. It's also consistent with the fiscal and economic vitality goal to increase Denton's tourist and economic potential. The intent is to develop this as an indoor pickleball facility. Pickleball is a growing sport, increasing in popularity, with its strategic location along I-35, just north of the razor range overlay developments. This does further our goals towards increasing some of that tourism to Denton. There are several design standards that are incorporated to address any compatibility issues as well as concerns. One of those is limiting the maximum building height to 36 feet, by right, buildings in MN zoning districts could be up to 41 feet, 65 feet is allowed with an SUP, so this would limit that height to 36 feet. The proposed development does propose a 15-foot wide landscape buffer along the southern and northern property lines were adjacent to single-family residential uses, so that would be this corner up here were adjacent to R6 as well as this southern property line, and a 20-foot wide landscape buffer along the eastern property line. This landscape buffer shall include 30 points from the DDC's Table 7 Point G. The proposed development plan also incorporates a 35-foot rear yard setback, and then incorporates some specific design standards should this develop as an indoor recreation facility, and that includes a butterfly roof element, which you can see in this concept drawing here, kind of the V-shaped roof line, as well as some specific architectural variation requirements, including that no more than 30 linear feet without having a horizontal or vertical break along that facade. Public outreach was conducted in accordance with both state law and the DDC. Mailed notices were sent out to property owners within 200 feet, as well as the courtesy notice within 500 feet. We did receive one response that is within 200 feet via an email that was forwarded to you all. The applicant has held six neighborhood meetings. I'll let them speak to their specific engagements on this property. Staff is recommending approval, as it is consistent with our general criteria for approval, as well as that for PDs. The next step would be city council on December 3rd. I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have. As I said, the applicant is here. I believe they have a short presentation, and they could also answer any questions. - Great, thank you, Angie. Any questions right now for Angie? Okay, thank you. I do have the applicant's card right here, so I'll go ahead and invite Amy Bissett up for her presentation. - Good evening, commissioners. Amy Bissett, 97 Lynn, 109 North Elm, Denton 76201. I'm gonna pull up my slides real quick. Hopefully, there we go. I did watch the work session discussion this evening, so I do wanna start by doing my best to answer the one question that came up during work session. Chair Ellis, you asked about operating hours specifically. We have had multiple conversations with our client about operating hours. This is their first facility like this, so they don't have a solid answer for that. They do not have set operating hours yet. However, what you can expect is that it would operate in the morning hours like a gym, so opening early, and operate into the evening hours like a restaurant, so would be open later on Friday and Saturday nights, but typically closing around the time that restaurants would close on weekdays and weekends. That's what we know so far about that. You already know the location, so I'm gonna skip over that. I do wanna talk a little bit about the zoning that was done in 2020. We have met with the neighbors six times, and I've had multiple one-on-one conversations with neighbors as well, and one of the first things we did with our first neighborhood meeting was acknowledge the fact that there had been considerable concessions made in 2020 with the PD overlay that was approved back then, and set out our goal to comply with as many of those conditions as possible, or to come up with alternative conditions that best address the neighborhood concerns. This was the concept plan that was presented back in 2020, and I do wanna go over it just a little bit so that we can talk about how our initial concept plan attempted to comply with this. As Angie said, there were seven buildings. They were ranging in size, and the ones closest to the eastern property line and the southern property line were restricted to be single story, and then this connection to Colonial Drive was restricted to be emergency access only. Additionally, there was use restrictions that the buildings closest to the residential neighbors would be restricted to professional and medical offices, clinics, or residential uses, and that the parking on the east shall be located between the buildings and the east property line to provide a buffer to the residential. Our client who owns this property today purchased it after this PD was approved, and while their proposed land uses are permitted under this PD as it exists today, the way these restrictions are written make it infeasible to develop currently. So the prohibited land uses that were there, that were adopted in 2020, we are proposing the same prohibited land uses today. I do wanna point out that what is permitted under the current zoning is an indoor recreational facility, including concessions and including a restaurant, which is what we're proposing today, so we're not proposing a change to the allowable land uses. An indoor pickleball facility is what's being proposed, and you can see this was our initial concept plan, and just to kind of toggle back and forth between the former concept plan and this one, we tried to comply as much as we could, including putting the parking between the eastern property line and the buildings, and trying to configure the site in a way that was as consistent as possible. We did hold a total of six neighborhood meetings. We had two in March, where we presented that initial concept plan that you just saw. We received quite a bit of feedback from that, which I'm gonna go through with you in a moment. We went back to the drawing board, came back in June with a new concept plan, which is generally consistent with what you see tonight, and after we went through city staff review, which started in June, we went back with two more meetings in September to just confirm the details and go over all the specifics with the neighbors. Of those six meetings, we had about five to 10, on average, per meeting. So our initial meetings in March, the concerns that we heard from the neighbors included, our dumpster location was near the residential property line, and they were concerned about food waste and associated pests that might be attracted. And the location of parking, while they had preferred the parking to be between the buildings and the property line, in 2020, the preference of the neighbors as a whole in our engagement was that they did not want the parking to be between the building and the property line. They were concerned, we had in this initial concept, some outdoor pickleball courts. They were concerned about noise pollution, and specifically the noise of those outdoor courts, which you'll see in our new concept plan. We have removed those, and everything is indoors, other than just a courtyard that's nestled between buildings that proposes no sports use. They were concerned about the possibility of people coming into the neighborhood through, there's an existing sidewalk easement that comes across the north end of the property line here. They didn't want people coming from the development into their neighborhood by utilizing that sidewalk easement. They were concerned about serving food and alcohol. That is one of the two concerns that we have not addressed of theirs. However, food and alcohol in a restaurant would be permitted under the zoning as it is today, and that's an integral part of their business plan. So it is proposed as a part of this development. It would be a restaurant that is interior to the facility. And then secondly, the neighbors to the northeast of us have significant drainage issues that exist today. They experience flooding on their property today. We've seen videos of it, we've seen photos of it, and they have drainage concerns that are valid, that occurred when the development to the north went in several years ago. You all know that the best we can do to address that is to comply with the drainage criteria that exists today, which would prevent us from creating more of an adverse effect on their property. So this is kind of our site plan today. I'm gonna zoom in on it in a minute and just point out a few features. But we did relocate the dumpster to the front of the property to get it as far away from the residential uses as possible. We relocated the parking, we moved it to the north end of the lot and pushed the building to the south end. We removed the outdoor pickleball courts, this little area in the middle here is the only thing that's outdoors and I'll show you a rendering of it here in a minute. And we're proposing fencing to prevent the pedestrian connectivity between the development and the existing neighborhood. As I pointed out already, what we did not change is serving food and alcohol indoors, which is permitted under the current zoning today. Angie went through all of the conditions that we're proposing. I won't reread those for you all, but I do wanna just zoom in on the site plan for a minute and point out a couple of things. So in this particular version of the site plan, north is to your right. And you can see here the dumpster location and how that's been positioned away from the single family residential. We are proposing an eight foot masonry wall here and then on the south end as well. Colonial drive will be emergency access only and then the way that the ordinance is written, we would be required to put a eight foot fence or masonry wall where none exists today on the eastern property line. The reason that we wrote it in that way is because if there's an existing fence that is near existing trees, we don't want the neighbors to have to lose existing trees in order to get a fence put in there. So that was kind of the overall preference of the neighbors that we had the flexibility. We had to provide a screening wall if they didn't have one, but we had the flexibility to determine what it was based on tree preservation and personal preference. Here's a couple of renderings. This is the entrance. This is facing south, the main entrance into the facility. Here's one looking up from an aerial where you can see the indoor courtyard. I'm sorry, the outdoor courtyard. Here's a view of the courtyard itself and here's a rendering of the west elevation. And that is all I have. I do have, the property owner is here if you have any specific questions that you would like to ask them, but I'd be happy to answer any questions as well. Thank you. And I know we have several neighbors here and some of them may wanna speak, so. - Yeah, do have some cards. Thank you, Amy. I think we do have a question for you, Commissioner Peruette. - Thank you, Chair. Just a couple quick ones. We've had this overlay PD process now for maybe a year and a half, I think. What has been your experience going through this as far as the difficulty of this tool versus the full PD tool? And I know this is a little different 'cause it was a PD before, but if you can offer some experience there, I'd help. - I have the benefit of having had the opportunity to do overlay zoning prior to the 2019 code being implemented and so I've experienced both and what I like about the overlay PD is that it is a simpler tool to be able to write in some conditions that help to address neighborhood concerns without having to spend $250,000 on full sets of plans to get a PD approved and we'll call it 100,000. It just kind of depends on the complexity of it, but it's a more straightforward tool that allows us to get what we need to get accomplished with a neighborhood when the concerns can be addressed in a text overlay. - Okay, and then I guess in the discussion with the neighbors to the east, I'm imagining this is only 250 feet away from the 35 right of way as far as the back property line, approximately, that by far from a noise concern perspective, it's primarily road noise from 35, is that accurate? - It is and we've talked about how the construction of the building itself will block some of that road noise. I think that the noise pollution concerns come from, if the restaurant's open until 10 p.m. or the facility is and people are leaving and joking and being loud or there were some concerns about whether or not you'd be able to hear pickleball from inside the facility, but we've addressed that with our architect to be sure that the wall panels are insulated and would prevent that sort of noise travel. - Okay, thank you. - Anything else for Amy? - May I share one more quick thing that I forgot to share? - Of course. - We have offered, if we make it through this PD process and move into full civil design to do a site visit with our civil engineer to kind of look at some of the drainage issues and see what we can do to help actually address them. We certainly don't wanna make 'em worse, but we'd like to try to make 'em better. - Great, thank you. - Thank you. - Okay, I do have some cards in front of me. Rose Scott. Hi there, if you'll state your name, your time. We'll begin and if you could speak into the microphone, that would be great. - My name is Rose Scott. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to y'all this evening. And I understand if I put a picture over here, it can be-- - That's true. We just gotta-- - Magically. - We gotta get the eye in the sky going, which our magical people in the back will do. There you go. - This is what we're talking about when we say a water problem. Brought to us by the city of Denton, which allowed the development of Windsor Farms. And we have been fighting this for 17 years now. And this was taken in May. And you can't tell, see this? - Oh, if you could use the microphone, please, I'm sorry. - Okay, I'm gonna put this right here and see what it does. This is the edge of our porch, right here. Here's the pole, here's the light. This is the lapping water. And I have spared you a picture of our garage, which also gets water. One more. Our backyard. I think you can see clearly what we're talking about when we say we have huge concerns about the water, the drainage, when we know that there's going to be a development of 3.185 acres that's covered in building and in hard surface, impervious to drainage, except for runoff. And the last thing we are interested in is more that runs off either into our yard or the Williams yard or anybody else who abuts this property. I will point out too that 3.185 acres actually equals 138,956.4 square feet, which will be incapable of absorbing water. So where does the runoff go? Well, there was some sort of, well, maybe we could do a pond or something. We have heard solutions before, and they didn't work. So this is our massive concern. Of course, we're also concerned about the parking behind us, about headlights and cars doors slamming as people leave having been in a restaurant and a pickle ball or the noise, the garbage that'll attract rats about the overall privacy. Yeah, we're concerned about those things too. We surely are. And I will say that Amy, thank you, has been a very gracious facilitator to this business. We appreciate the way that's been handled, but we still have grave concerns. I said in mine that I was conditionally approving. Basically, I hate the thought of this. I also realize that development is inevitable. And if it must occur, that surely it can occur in a way that doesn't cost the existing neighbors thousands of dollars to fix the screw up that by no fault of our own was brought literally to our own homes. And I thank you for listening. - Thank you very much, Ms. Scott. The next card I have is John Scott. If you'll state your name, your time will begin. - My name is John Scott. And yes, I am related to the previous speaker. We lived in that neighborhood. We were the first people to live in that house. The coyotes ran the field and all that kind of stuff. And when the development came north of us, this is background, this is very important. When the development came to the north of us, I was concerned about water issues. They have raised the level of the earth up there nine feet. We were assured everything was going to be fine. In front of me, an email that was sent to me on June the 28th, 2007, assuring me that they would take care of the development issues by kind of building a swale to the north of us to keep things off our property. That swale, which is completely inadequate, was completed in 2022. So we've been living with this problem. I went to the builders who were building the property up there. I said, we got problems with drainage. His solution was, basically, we've been allowed to build this development up here, go away, but I'll concede by putting downspouts on two of the houses up there, which did absolutely no good. This is only going to get worse and worse and worse. As Rose said, we have just spent thousands of dollars on some drainage fixes in the backyard. That seems to be an improvement. But what's going to happen is behind us, all of those trees are gonna go away, no matter what they tell you. They will go away. They're just junk trees under the power lines. And water's going to flow freely. And our house, and of course Greg, they've had water in their living room. We've only had it in our bedroom one time. We've had it in our garage. What she showed you, the photos of our back porch is very typical. The backyard floods constantly. And this will be up against our property. I have grave concerns this evening when I found out, and by the way, I echo what Rose said, that they've been very gracious and very fair in their conversations with us. I must say I am not at all pleased knowing that there's going to be alcohol served out there. This is not going to be your kids going and playing pickleball. This is going to be people out there drinking until the time they leave, and it's going to get really loud and noisy. So I was sort of on the border about saying I wholeheartedly approve this, until I found out about the alcohol sale. Assuming that they would take care of all of the other problems. Which for me, I know I sound like a broken record talking about the drainage. These poor people are hearing me, sick of hearing me talk about it. But I can't tell you how many times I've been up at three o'clock in the morning, sweeping out the garage and digging trenches by my driveway to get the water to flow away from the house myself, and trying to direct water around the house somehow so that it won't go into their house. Because you go down the hill, and it's like this from here to the end of street, and it's all down from there. So I hate to say it, but because of the alcohol sale issue, I must change my vote to being opposed to this, because we have spent too much money on our house, and too much money trying to take care of what the developer is intending to fix, that the city has never addressed properly. And I hold the city responsible for the photos that you were shown. Any questions? - I do not see any questions, but thank you for your concerns, appreciate it. Next card I have is Craig Williams. (clears throat) Ty, if you'll state your name, your time will begin. - Hi, I'm Craig Williams. I live next door to the Scotts. And basically I put in my provisional or conditional approval as well. They have done their due diligence with the meetings. We have had a lot addressed, but there still are some concerns. Mr. Scott said about the drainage, it's, I didn't spend as much as he did, but I've spent thousands of dollars myself with French drains and repairs from flooding. But so yes, that is a very big concern that if the drainage be handled properly, or at least the city could get a handle on it. And another thing I'm just kind of concerned about is I guess pickleball is getting really popular, but I feel that Denton is trying to become the North Texas hub of pickleball, because within this property, there's I think three other pickleball courts within six miles. You have Drinkers Pickleball. It's on where the old Brookshires was, was it Teasley in '35. There's the Pickler, which I think is, took over the drug emporium that was on University. That's about three miles away. And then you've got the brand new really nice courts that the city put in, the pickleball courts there, and the new tennis center, I believe, right at the North Lake Park. So there's three, there's three pickleball courts, I guess, or facilities, the furthest being six miles, other being two and three, respectively. So I'm just, the concern is this like, is this a fad that's gonna go away? Is this something that's gonna really blow up? If it's gonna blow up, I guess okay, but if it's a fad that's gonna go away, then I'm kind of wondering, I don't wanna have an empty facility sitting there or have it repurposed, or we're having to come down here again for another zoning, another zoning change. The one in 2020 that we approved to, we really thought that was a win for all of us. But then it sold, I guess, so I mean, I'm also concerned that what happens if this gets approved and then this new ownership decides they can't do this or don't wanna do it, and something else happens, unforeseen, and then they then sell it to another owner who we're gonna come back in here 'cause they wanna tweak it again. So those are just some of my concerns that I had with this, and I'll also echo John's concerned about the alcohol. I know they kind of, it's a restaurant, I guess, that will probably serve alcohol, but I'm also kind of concerned about the, I mean, it's kind of in a neighborhood. There's really nothing else around us that has that. I mean, there's some restaurants down in University. There's the Chili's and a few other places that serve, but this is kind of really almost more nestled into the neighborhood in a way. And one other thing about the access to it, I think they were talking about not being viable for residential because of the access problems from 35, but I mean, if you're driving down the road, you're gonna have to exit University, the University exit, which is horrible right now anyway, to then go north to get to this facility 'cause it's a one-way service road, or they're gonna have to come around and drive through the neighborhood to get to it. I don't, not sure, there's gonna be a huge amount of traffic coming through the neighborhood, but if it's something they're leaving a bar and have had drinks and are driving through the neighborhood, it might be a little bit more problematic, but in any case, that's all I have then. - Thank you. - Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Mr. Williams. Next card I have is Charles Lee. Don't see Mr. Lee in here. Okay, I'll go ahead and call the other card I have and then we'll see if Mr. Lee is back. Elizabeth McDonald. Hi there, if you'll state your name, your time will begin. - Okay, thank you. I am Elizabeth McDonald, and I'm the email that was sent, and so you may have already seen some of the, I guess, comments that I had. I would like to echo what the previous speakers have said in terms of connecting with Amy, she has been fantastic. I really appreciate so much her, just her time with us, and asking questions individually. That really helps ease fears, and so I'd like to really honor that in her. And I would also like to say that I don't know that I have the same exact drainage issues that my neighbors have, but we did have to put in a French drain, we did have some water in our home right after we moved in, and the French drain has helped, but there's always just this running to check the back porch to make sure we're not having a big situation, every time we get a lot of rain, so I do think that if that could be addressed, that would be fabulous. My two main concerns are, we do not know the hours of operation, that's the first one. And at this point, I think we should know that, for me to feel any sense of an ability to say that I do approve this. So I want full transparency, and I'd like to really know what is going to occur with the facility, so I think that should be provided. I'm grateful for what Amy shared tonight, but I would really like to know what that's gonna look like. And then the other is the noise. I'm very concerned about that. Now Amy did, when I spoke with her, she did say that we would not hear a thing in the building, which is great. And I like the courtyard, but I'm concerned that that could be an area where people start playing music or they're out there talking really loud or doing things that would not provide the peace that we need to be able to live peacefully in our homes. This is where we live, this is where we are. And I actually have worked out of my house online, and I would need the peace and the quiet to be able to even focus and concentrate. So I think that knowing what we're up against, what that would be, would be great. And also if we could also find out how big the restaurant is, how many people it will seat, I think that would help me to understand a little bit more. I wanted to say that I was in favor, but I can't until I have those answers. I love Denton. My sister who's with me, she got her degree at the University of North Texas. I'm thrilled for Denton to have businesses that will succeed. I had the privilege of working for Texas Women's University for 16 years. And so I'm not against wonderful things occurring, but we do need to figure out how we can make this work for our neighborhood so that we really can do this for our neighborhood so that we really don't have to see it or hear it, hoping that everything would be so successful with whatever gets provided there in that area for a business, but in a way that we can live comfortably in our homes and still be contributing citizens to this city. And so those would be my thoughts. Thank you so much. - Thank you. Okay, so that leaves me with the last card I have, which is Mr. Lee, and I will give him one more minute, if that. (laughs) If not, his would be the last card I have. Is there anyone here who did not fill out a card who wishes to speak on this item? Okay. (faintly speaking) I will go ahead and close the public hearing. And I will open up the floor for discussion or motion. Commissioner Pruitt, sorry. - Thank you, Chair. I'll ask a question for staff that we may not have the answer to, and I'm sorry that that's my mode of operation. This evening. (laughs) Just in general, you know, I look at the topography there. I'm not able to look at the drainage infrastructure because apparently somebody's gonna throw a bomb in the sewer. I just, help me understand why it's so bad. When I look at the topo map, it looks like the flow of water is from north to south. The subject property is actually kind of from northeast to southwest, sort of away from the neighbors to the east. And it doesn't look like it's a great deal of watershed coming south. At the same time, the area just to the east was developed a long time ago when our drainage standards and stormwater systems were not the same standards as they are now. I believe the Windsor, what's the name of it again, Windsor? - Windsor Farms. - Farms, thank you. It looks in the historical maps like it broke ground in 2005, I think, and so that was a long time ago. Thank you for listening to me ramble. The question is really, it doesn't look to me like the subject property has a lot of watershed that will flow toward the neighbors to the east. It looks to me like perhaps a significant portion of the drainage issues are adjacent, but not related to what might happen here. And so I wanna make sure we set up expectations and let the residents know whatever process or status the stormwater update is coming to be able to have realistic expectations about how much improvement might come so that we don't get ourselves in a situation where, well, I thought this development was gonna fix it and then it didn't, and then what do I do? Does that make sense? - Yes, I follow, and I'll try my best to address it, and then Tina can chime in and add more color to it if I can't adequately capture everything. So your initial glance at our inner maps is accurate. There's not existing floodplain on the area nor any riparian or water-related eases, either on the site or immediately adjacent to it. There are some of those areas further to the northeast on the north side of Windsor, and it is likely that some of these drainage concerns are part of a larger area drainage problem. As it comes to the development of the site specifically, should this go forward to civil engineering plans, detailed engineering review is required, and that includes a review of the drainage systems on the lot. I don't know that I could speak to any sort of guarantee that it might improve the situation. It likely would put, it would add impervious surface, but would also account for that impervious surface and could not increase the flow of water. If there are known issues on site, that could be an opportunity for them to be improved, but that would need to be done and reviewed at that time of study, which at this point, we're just not there quite yet. We're still talking about the nuts and bolts of the zoning. - Yeah, totally understand. Maybe just if there's an update for the residents on what we're in the process of the stormwater needs assessment we are and what that planning phase is. It's been a long time since I've heard that we were putting together a large report like that. Even if it's something where we work with the applicant to distribute that information to the residents, I just wanna make sure we don't have a, I thought this was said and now it's still a problem situation, does that make sense? - I don't know if I have anything really more to add other than I'm not aware of a master stormwater plan that's being developed. I know we were working on water and sanitary sewer, but stormwater escapes me right now. I will attest that I am not an engineer, nor is Angie, so we're land use planners, but here more recently, typically what we find with our development projects because of our standards being to a higher quality and higher level of performance, potentially compared to decades ago, that we are very concerned regarding making sure the development or when a property develops that they are not, that that development is not increasing any stormwater runoff. They do have to account for the developed conditions so that it is not at a worst level of runoff, that's a way to describe that, so that it's not a worst level of runoff prior to pre-developed conditions. So if 50 cubic feet of water were leaving the site today in an undeveloped state, then after the property is developed, no more than 50 cubic feet of water could leave the site, to use an example. So we are conscientious of it, and we look for that. I think if, also I would point out that many times, obviously this did not happen when the neighborhood to the north of the residents who have expressed concern happened their situation, but today, I mean we are very conscientious of drainage concerns as we review construction plans to try and ensure that we're not creating any situations where there's adverse, negative drainage implications on adjoining properties. We treat that very seriously. - Commissioner Pridharm. - I have a question related to noise, and Amy, I'm not sure if you address this. What's the max capacity? - That's an interesting question, and it's kind of a challenging formula. I don't know off the top of my head. If I can pull up the site plan, I can at least show you guys how many courts we're looking at. Give me just one second here. We've got 16 courts. As you can see, the seating area is very small. It's not like we're seating hundreds of people. It's gonna be a concession style restaurant that's intended to be an accessory use to the actual pickleball courts. The actual capacity would be a function of a number of things from whether it's sprinkled and how many parking spaces there are and what the square footage is and what the construction type is, so I don't have that specific answer for you. Unfortunately, I can tell you that we've got roughly 70 parking spaces, so that probably gives you some gauge there as well. I do also, if you don't mind, I want to address Commissioner Pruitt's question about drainage. Yes, the site drains from the northwest to the southeast, and we account for that in terms of where we believe the detention and the drainage will be handled. We also believe that some of what's coming from the north is coming across our property and that we would have to handle that as well. I'm sorry about that, but did that cover your question? - Thank you. - Thank you, Commissioner Villarreal. - Thank you, Chair. Amy, a quick question. I know this came up earlier. I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but we know there's gonna be alcohol sales. Is that just beer and wine or is there a full bar? - It would be a restaurant, so it's not a bar. It's a restaurant that would serve alcohol, so it would have to be less than 50% of the sales would have to be predominantly food. I don't know that they've made a decision about whether or not they would serve mixed drinks, but I would go on the assumption that if they want a full restaurant, that they probably would. - Got it, thank you. - Commissioner Villarreal. - I'm gonna move approval. Amy, I think you did a great job really talking with the community here, just getting folks to come and even offer conditional support after the amount of hardship they've been through due to surrounding development, I think, shows a lot of effort on your part. So I understand there's a lot of concern here, fully understand the concern. Hopefully we can, the city can help address some of those drainage issues with y'all. But with what we have currently, I'm gonna move approval. - Thank you, Commissioner Pruitt. I will second, and I'm glad to see this property moved to an overlay PD instead of a full PD. So, yeah, thank you. - Got a first and a second for approval. Any discussion? Yeah, I'll go ahead and just say a couple things and understand the drainage issue and hopefully we'll continue to talk about that. I'll be bringing that up at the end of the meeting as a matter of fact. It's certainly not the fault of this developer, those issues. And this development won't make that worse, it can't make that worse. So that in and of itself I think is a separate problem. The compromises that have been done in relation to the protection of the neighborhood is pretty substantial. When you look at how it's zoned now, restaurants are allowed. So that can be done, it has just limiting right behind the homes, it to offices, but restaurant is allowed now currently on site. So with this the way it's done, with where they've moved things, with where they've put parking, all of it is done to help protect the neighborhood that's already there. What we have now sitting on the property, other than that little bit of east side that says it has to be medical offices, that's the only protection that's on it. It could be anything else that's permitted in the zoning district without any kind of compromise made. So yeah, I think the applicant has done a great job reaching out. I mean, I think you all have valid concerns, but I think they're concerns that are aside from this request. So with that, is there anyone else who got a first and a second for approval? Yeah, go ahead, yep. Thanks to my subject matter experts working behind the scenes. They were able to share with me that apparently our engineering staff did present a stormwater master plan needs assessment to city council back in September of 2023. We have not found though yet where the plan has gone back to them for adoption. So we presume that that's still in the works. Okay, thank you. Okay, there's nothing else. We'll go ahead and vote please. (mouse clicking) That motion will carry three, one. That will move to city council then December 3rd. Okay, next is 5C, Z240011. We'll open the public hearing and invite Julie Wyatt for presentation. Good evening. There we go. All right, good evening. I'm Julie Wyatt and I am presenting Z2411, DISD transportation facility. All right, so the request before you is to rezone approximately 10 acres owned by Denton ISD from our sixth district to public facilities district. The property is located or it's situated in the east side of town located just north of the Ryan High School campus, south of Mills Road. So kind of sandwich between those two. And it's shown in blue on your screen, the outline blue here. There you go. And really there are two purposes for this request. First is it's consistent with the city's typical practice of having public facilities zoning on properties owned by government entities in that city, state, county, and school. It's also intended to facilitate relocation of their transportation facility that is located just west of the subject property and it is outlined in yellow on your screen. So there's the current. The Denton development code classifies this use as a community service. It is important to note that community service is actually allowed in all zoning districts within the city of Denton. But this rezoning would help them develop in a way that those design standards would be consistent with the use that they're proposing. So we reviewed the case against the comprehensive plan and it is consistent. It's consistent with the future land use designation. First of all, the subject property is designated as low residential. Typically we see low density single family for low residential, but that category also includes the supporting services like educational facilities. And this PF district is consistent with that not only in zoning, but also in that use and that it does further that educational mission of Denton ISD. It's also consistent with our housing goals to provide those adequate public facilities and because it is consistent with that educational mission, it's consistent with that goal as well. We also looked at impacts to the surrounding property. This is kind of a unique case, something we don't see very often and that the use is actually located just about 420 feet from the proposed location. So it's really not introducing any new uses to the area or activities. There really is just shifting it toward the east. Any new development would have to meet current regulations and that includes things like street trees, screening, landscaping, buffering, and site design considerations. Because the use is existing and operational just down the street, we don't anticipate a significant increase in daily trips associated with it. And consistent with what they have currently on their transportation facility, they are proposing a right turn lane into the site that allow those buses to move out of the travel lanes to get in the subject property. And you can see, there's, I took a couple of photos and here's that existing right turn lane into the current facility. And here is a photo of the future location. Public outreach was sent out. We did hear from one community member and I think you got that email. There were concerns about Mills Road as well as some security on the side. I think we addressed the security question at work session in that they will fence and make sure that those buses are in a secured area. We've also forwarded the community members' concerns about Mills Road to our transportation folks so that they can start reviewing the area and see if there are any improvements that can be made to increase the safety in Mills Road. And we've also forwarded it to our police department just so that they are aware of concerns on Mills Road. So based upon the criteria for approval, staff does recommend approval of the request. I'll be happy to answer any questions. The applicant or a representative of the applicant is also here to answer any questions that you may have regarding the proposal of the request. The anticipated council date, if it moves forward tonight, would be December 3rd. - Thank you, Julie. Any questions for Julie? This is a public hearing. The only card I have in front of me is Mr. Lee, who is not here in attendance. So is there anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Yeah, come on down. If you will give us your name, your time will begin. Hi. - Sure, hi, my name is Amanda Collins. I live on Kenningham, excuse me, which is just off of Mills. I'm a newbie here, so I didn't fill out my card. I'm sorry, I'll do that next time I'm here. But I just wanted to say that I am in favor of it. I don't have any large concerns. I feel like my house was on one of the maps that was shown up there, 'cause that's how close we are to Mills Road and to this new, I don't wanna say development, but project that's gonna happen. I think, again, we are concerned about the road. I've lived here in that particular house for about 11 years and 10 years. And the amount of times that we have gone head on with other cars because of people walking up and down the roads, the amount of times that we have gone head on just because of how narrow the roads are, there's no room for air, there's no sidewalks, people have to walk in the road or they're walking in these unmaintained deep ditches. And so that's really, I think, the biggest concern for a lot of people. But like I said, I think that what could be going there, when we saw that both of those two residential properties had been sold is always very scary 'cause you don't know what's going in. So my vote is yes, I would love to see it go to the school district. I would love to see it, or it has gone to the school district, but I would love to see the school district utilize it, especially that I have two small kids at home and they're gonna grow up and go to Denton Ryan. And so, like I said, I just wanted to say that I'm in favor of it, just concerned about the road issue as well, but that's my two cents about it. So thank you for listening. - Appreciate the same. Thank you very much. - Okay, is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item? Okay, seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. And I will open the floor for a motion or discussion. Commissioner Perdom. - Yes, Julie, if I could just ask a question. Do you know if there's any existing speed reduction devices on the road right now, just because we did have the comment from the member of the public related to speed? - As far as like a school zone? - Or anything to reduce speed? - Not that I'm aware of right now. And I drove it this morning to take the picture, and I did not see any school zones, but once again, our transportation folks, it's on their radar. I'll make sure to follow up with them to see if there's anything that can be done. - Okay, thank you. - Sure. Commissioner Perdom. - Thank you, Chair. I actually have a question for the applicant representative. Did you say someone was here? As you're coming up, well, I'll wait for you to introduce yourself, sorry. - Yes, my name is Anthony Milvitz with TNP 3200 South Interstate 35E. - Okay. Do you have any information on why the choice of the moving the location? I think the information we got from staff was we wanna move the bus service facility, and then perhaps have some more field area where the existing facility is. Understand that not opposed to the process of moving the pieces around the board, I'm just trying to understand that seems like a very expensive option. - Yeah, I understand. They're just out of space, frankly, at the current transportation facility. It's just about five acres, and the new facility is almost 10 acres. It's a space thing. You'll notice a lot of the buses are parked outside of the facility, just either they're needing maintenance or they're just not in use. And that would provide the ability to have all those behind a secure fence and enough space for operations. - Thank you, that makes sense. It's just from eyeballing the existing concreted area, it looked like it was about the same size, but I guess some of that area is devoted to a different use or something right now. Yeah, okay, thank you. - No problem. - Thank you for being here. And Commissioner Prud, thank you for answering that, asking that question. Yeah, I've had the same question 'cause it looks like it was way more complicated to do that, but knowing that you're doubling in size now makes complete sense. Commissioner Villarreal. - Move approval. - Commissioner Pedro. - I second. - Okay, we've got a first and a second for approval. Any other discussion? Okay, let's go ahead and vote please. That motion will carry for zero. Taking us to 5D, AESA 240003. I will open that public hearing and staff is requesting that we continue this item to the December 11th meeting. Commissioner Villarreal. - Move for continuance to the December 11th, 2024, planning and zoning meeting. - Okay, Commissioner Pedro. - I second. - Okay, we've got a first and a second to continue this item to the December 11th, planning and zoning meeting. We will leave the public hearing open. Any discussion? Okay, let's vote please. That motion carries for zero. That will take us to our planning and zoning commission project matrix. And I will give the floor to Tina. - Sorry, my space is not big enough. So with respect to matrix report, so this evening we did address two items on the matrix regarding receiving the update from the parks and recreation team about their master plan and then also regarding the tree fund. So we will go ahead and remove those items off the matrix, if that works for you all. There were no changes otherwise made to the matrix from your meeting last week or at the previous time. Also, we have no city council actions to report since we had our last planning and zoning commission meeting in speaking to city council for city council's benefit as well as for staff's so that we can make sure that we represent commissioners correctly. If you're gonna be voting in opposition to a motion, I do ask that you provide comments as to why you're gonna be voting in opposition. Reason being is 'cause council does ask that of us and so we wanna be able to answer them and represent any commissioner voting in opposition to a motion correctly. So if you could kindly help us with that, we would so greatly appreciate it. So thank you. - Thank you, Tina. Anything to add to the matrix? - Yeah, and I'll just completely piggyback on that 'cause that's been a thing for me too. That is so important. It's important for the applicant. It's important for staff and it's certainly important to city council as they have the last word on these projects. Commissioner Prudt. - Thank you. I don't actually want this added to the matrix, but I wanna put a pin in it because I don't know when the right time will be. I did go back and look at that stormwater master plan very briefly. It looks like a different phase of work than our typical planning master plans in that it's really sort of a set of procedures and goals of how the analysis should be taken place to look at our stormwater infrastructure. So I imagine there's a lot of effort that has already started or will soon start to start looking at smaller areas before we would have any actionable information about them. But I may not be here or we may not know as a body when that occurs. So if there's a way of making sure as those smaller studies to show where the needs are at a more granular level within the city, start to become available and actionable from a land use perspective, I think that would be important. But it may be four years from now. Does that make sense? - I believe so. So let me paraphrase and see if I understood you correctly. So as those smaller drainage studies are being completed, you're wanting us to address it how with respect to land use? - Sure, just to understand what the needs are, especially as it pertains to already developed areas in the city. We've talked about infill before. Many times that's made more complex because of the drainage issues. And so I think understanding what the long-term plans are for areas will help us feel more confident about development applications that come in where we see drainage issues existing as opposed to creating drainage issues with new development. Does that make sense? - Yes, thank you for explaining. - Thanks. - Thank you, Commissioner Brode. Yeah, and just on the note of the drainage issue, if there is anyone, and I don't know if that's possible, but if there is anyone from the city that can reach out to the Scots and Mr. Williams, we've got their information. Clearly they've talked to the city before, at least the Scots have, and clearly have had communication with them, but something didn't happen with follow through or what have you, but can we just be proactive in at least reaching out to them? And again, I don't think it was the applicant's issue to have to hold on to, but I think it is the city's. And again, we all have drainage issues in this city. Personally, have had to put in a major French drain. So it certainly exists. There seems excessive, and then again, with their discussion with the city, I just want them to have a better, just a better, some closure. I mean, if it's on the list that things are being taken care of and it's being looked at, just that someone could communicate with them, please, I think would be really important. - Yes, ma'am, we can do that. - Thank you, appreciate that. Okay, anything else for the matrix or continuing items? Okay, let's go ahead then and adjourn at 8.34 p.m. Thank you.
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